#31 Scarecrow

I have always loved scarecrows.

They are not that hard to make and can be practically free if you have some basic stuff laying around the house. Scrap wood, old clothes, hats, gloves, some burlap, tree trimmings, old sheets etc.... the possibilities are endless.

This is the guy I am making here!

One of my favorites scarecrows is from the movie Sleepy Hollow.
So simple, So classic, So Halloween!

sleepy hollow

The first scarecrow I made was after seeing that movie. I did it in an afternoon with some wood, old branches, black plastic, and a Funkin( fake pumpkin).

my guy

Ok my early work is not the most artistic, but it was last minute. I was very proud of him at the time. He stood 8 feet tall and got a lot of attention that night. Actually I kind of miss him.

May have to do a new version soon.

So I eventually stumbled across Pumpkin Rot.
A lot of people know him well. He is an amazing artist and The Scarecrow Master!!
If you haven't heard of him, go right now to his page ( should be in my links ) and look at his outstanding stuff!



So Pumpkin Rot has a scarecrow on there named Johnny Appleseed.
I love it so much. It instantly reminded me of the Jeepers Creepers 2 scarecrow. I remember wanting to make one too when I saw that movie. Only his has that signature eerie, rural, gothic Rot spin.

Jeepers Creepers 2

So my guy is.... inspired by them both.


I am not exactly sure how Pumpkin Rot makes his stuff, but this is how I decided to do mine.
Mostly with stuff I had on hand.

I have had a couple of these large plastic skulls sitting around for a while. I got them on clearance a few years back, never could figure out what to do with them. They are bigger than a normal skull not very realistic looking. So I decided to use one here.

Fist thing I did was build a thick neck.... I wanted that confusion "is that a person in there?" I did this by balling up news paper and building it up securing with masking tape. I just played with it until it looked right. Then I covered it with several layers of paper mache to make it very strong.

Neck built and taped ready for paper mache.

Sorry  I forgot to take pictures of the next two parts.

This thing needed to be weather proof so after the mache was completely dry I did two coats of DryLok.

I then hollowed out the crumbled newspaper inside the neck, all the way up to the underside of the plastic skull. I DryLoked the inside too sealing all paper parts.

Next I got some scraps of burlap and dipped it in just plain elmers glue. I draped it all over the head, building features with the wet burlap. 

Thick heavy brows, stronger cheek bones.

 I left the eyes somewhat uncovered, built up the nose a little leaving nostrils holes, and left a gap for the teeth to bite through.
All the better for him to see you with, smell you with, and EAT you with!!!

The glue made the burlap a little brittle when dry, just in the hanging parts really. 

I probably could have used Monster Mud instead, I was just too lazy to make it. 

Anyway the next step made it strong.

After he was dry I did several coats of DryLok. 

I painted the whole thing with a brown house paint (again, gotta love the oops paint).

After the base color was dry, I washed it with watered down black paint.
Then I dry brushed on a light burnt siena/ yellow ochre mix, to highlight.

Sorry so blurry. This was my old camera hopefully my new one is better.

For the hat, I just cut  a circle of cardboard and cut out a hole for his head. 

I wanted a very tight fit so the wind wouldn't blow it off.

I covered the part of his head sticking out with plastic wrap, and then covered that with duct tape.

I used crumbled newspaper and masking tape to give the top of the hat the shape I wanted. 

The red (it's all I had) duct tape covered form

The hat got several layers of paper mache, a layer of scrap fabric dipped in elmers, 3 coats of dry lock, and paint (same base coat and black wash as the head but a taupe color on the highlights).
All of these drying completely between each layer of course . 

The hat before paint

So before all this, I had found the perfect trench coat at good will.
This is the key to the look I think. I actually see them a lot at good will. This one was particularly large, which was even better.

Again, sorry for the lack of images for the next part, but it's pretty simple.


I made a cross with two piece of scrap furring strips.  A longer one about 6' going vertically, and a shorter one, about 3' horizontally. Secured them with screws.

The top of the vertical piece came up about a 12" from the horizontal wood strip ..enough to fit his head on securely.

I played with the head a bit, deciding on the right position. I wanted it slouchy... like the inspirations.

I then marked the best spot and drilled a hole into the plastic underside of the skull. I had to cut it a little with and exacto knife to get it big enough to go over the end of the furring strip.

I put the jacket on the cross before going further.

I pulled the sleeves back so I could work with the arms.

I wanted the twig arms and body like pumpkin rots.
I like how this is confusing and more supernatural. I imagine coming upon it "Could that be a man? No it can't be. But it seems Alive!  WHAT THE HELL IS IT?!!"

The twig arms in place, sleeves pulled back for working.

So attaching the twigs is fairly simple. 

I just stacked and layered branches until I liked the way they looked.

 I used a combo of twine, floral wire to secure them.

 I then dripped hot glue in between the branches and all a round to really make it strong.

For the body kind of the same thing I used bigger twigs and branches and wrapped them up trying for a

vine like look. 

This pic was before I glued them. I removed the twigs and stained the parts of the furring strip that would be showing.

I noticed his shoulders (where they meet the neck) not looking thick enough.

If you look at the picture a few above (with both sleeves pulled back) you can see kind of what I mean.

So using some coat hanger wire I rigged a little something to beef it up. 

Much fuller shoulder line now. Just need some stain and his hat now.

So to secure him in the ground. this is very important so he doesn't become top heavy and snap.

I can't believe I didn't get pics of this important part!

I used a very long and thick wooden tree stake and pounded it the earth. It almost went up the whole way of his back.  A small cross piece was nailed to the tree stake where the bottom of his furring strip rested. I secured it with huge zip ties and screws it wasn't going anywhere! It's actually not complicated, but those directions are making it sound harder than it is. In fact anyone could probably figure out a dozen other ways to stake him down

(Ya know what, I am going to draw a diagram of what I did. I'll edit and add that here later.)

So anyway here is an image of him complete.

 I love how he rocked, just slightly in the wind, and his coat looked amazing flowing in the breeze. 

At night I had a red uplight shinning on him.

But still wind or none, day or night... he always looked very sinister. 

He was a wonderful spooky addition to our yard this year.





Thanks for stopping by.

#13 Black Light Mask Room

This is based on a classic haunted dot room. 


The dot room has been around forever. What you do is set up a room with a black light, and cover it in neon dots. The trick is you hide someone in the room, in black, with dots allover them. When they move towards guests, the effect is very freaky.


This is basically the same idea just using masks.

I ordered these plain white masks from Oriental Trading Company $4.99 for a dozen.

Sorry having trouble attaching links right now.
Just go to their website and type in masks, they will come up.

They are flimsy and cheap but they work just fine for the walls. And the price just can't be beat. Most white masks are  $2 to $6 each at craft stores, and you need a ton for the effect to work.  I ordered 4 dozen and I wish I had ordered at least 6. It depends on how big the room is. Our room was just bigger than I originally thought.






I purchased these neon paints at Home depot. Walmart has some too, not as many colors as I recall and the price wasn't any better. Plus good luck getting help to unlock the spray paint shelf in Walmart.

One thing Walmart did have was the black plastic that I use for the walls of my haunt. It's in the paint section. Just painters plastic. Inexpensive, sturdy, and black. If one Walmart does not have it, look around at others. I've noticed some carry it, some don't around here.

I don't know why this won't rotate, it's rotated in my album.

I also used plastic primer to prime the masks.  I had mine on hand I think I got this from Lowe's a while back. Anyway you can get that anywhere.

So after they are all primed and painted and dry I  pinned them to the plastic walls in a random pattern with little black safety pins.


It turned out amazing!

Kind of hard to capture the full effect here. Black light pix don't turn out well on my camera but it was very bright. all you could see were masks. 

Save a couple masks for the scarer. I say a couple because you need quick back up incase the string breaks, which it did.


My spook wore the mask along with a cheap halloween hooded cloak, black socks, and gloves.


We hung the light  from the ceiling in the garage. 




For the black light I used my big one, it's like 40 inches or more . But I think two regular 18 inch ones should fill a room. Don't use the bulbs they are not as effective. 

You are so disoriented in the room with the masks everywhere and the black light. 


 You truly could not see her. She would stand perfectly still and then start coming towards you! People freaked! It was like a floating head moving around. I was shocked how great this room was. 


We had grown men screaming!

#6 Black Light Gallery

They sell light reflective paints, but some can be pretty expensive.

I do like to use the neon colors it comes in, 

but I make my own white. 

It's not as bright and it does fade over time, but its easy and cheap!

You can actually see more of the detail lines in person... but I had to turn off my flash 

so they are lost in the pictures.

I use a mixture of Acrylic Gesso and Liguid Laundry detergent.

Gesso can be found in the paint section of the craft store. I buy the big tub but it also comes in small affordable tubes as well.

Tide is well known to be black light reactive by itself, also I like this stuff called Vivid. 

 It works really good and it's about half the price.

If you have liquid laundry soap on hand, check it out. Some brands glow, some don't.

I do a mix of approximately  2 parts soap to 1 part gesso, and mix it really good. 

First I start with a pieces of black poster board.

I trace my drawing with a white pencil.

I apply a coat of just the Gesso....sometimes I do 2 coats depends.

Then I apply the Soap/ Gesso mixture..

about two coats should do it.

This image is simple but for more complicated pictures I use my projector, trace the image then paint the Geeso, and trace over it again.

Here I only painted half so you see the contrast of plain gesso and the soap mixture.

See it glows great! And mixing it with the Gesso makes it thicker and easier to paint with than just going with straight tide over your painting.

 I like to do the final coat in the black light to catch any missed spots. 

It does fad ever time so my black light paintings I just go over again close to the big night with just soap, while under black light and it brightens right back up. And the guides lines are already there so it's easy.

Here is another one I am working on. 

He doesn't show up on camera as good in the black light for some reason...it looks purple here, but in real life his skin is the same color as my skeleton.... my camera is crap.

Here is a shot in the light

Someday I will be able to buy the real good paints, but until then this poor man's version will work.

#1 Toilet Paper Rolls of the Undead

When you are doing a garage haunt real candles are a no no! Unless you really want to kill your guests..... and we don't want to do that.... do we... Bwa Ha Ha Ha Ha!!!!

But seriously the Police will shut you down.

Also, wouldn't it be cool if during your Halloween party
 you didn't have to worry about a drunken woman, dressed in a too small Elvira costume,
lighting her sleaves on fire, and bumming everyone out. 

That's why Haunters have fake candles!

These are based on a how-to I found on the Halloween Forum.
They are usually made of PVC which is very cool. I made a bunch last year and they are very cool.
But I wanted to try a TP version.

 They are so easy to make and practically free!

And you'll be recycling, which is definitely not scary!
I know... I  suck, Ok!!!

Anyway there are a number of materials you could use here,
 but I just chose things I had on hand.

Here is what you need to get started.....

 Masking tape
TP rolls
News paper 

Battery tealights
Glue gun and extra Glue sticks

You will also need primer and a paint of your choice.

First I started by stuffing the roll with the paper all the way to the bottom. 

Keep checking it and smashing it at the bottom to make sure it sits flat. 

Leave a little part at the top unfilled. Just enough room for the light to sit in.

.

Next I use the masking tape, and tape up the bottom. Again smashing so it stands flat. 

Then I taped around that, to get rid of the jagged edges.

Now I turned it over and taped in the little candle well at the top. 

Keep checking to make sure your little candle rests in the hole nicely.

Like This

Now I built up the sides, just with some scrunched and folded masking tape. 

To give it that gnarly melty candle look.

So just start dripping hot glue down the sides. 

For the big wax puddles, I start at the bottom and work up layering the drips.

                                     

As long as you obey the laws of gravity you can't mess up. It's just melting wax!



Think like a Candle! Be The Candle!

After it was all dry I primed it with a primer called KILZ. You can get it in a can or spray any home improvement place . It is made for shiny surfaces so it works great on the glue.

 Here it is all dry I forgot to get pics of what it looked like primed. You will just have to use your imagination. Picture this only all white.

You can paint it any color you want. I wanted red for a Gothic Vampire scene. 

I also painted over the tea lights so it all blended together.

So that's it!

Safe, cheap, fake candles... practically free. 

The best place to buy battery Tea-lights I have found, is Dollar Tree. They have two packs for a dollar. But they do run out quite often so you may just have to keep checking. But you can get them anywhere. The Dollar Tree ones lasted all night of the Party, all Halloween night , and they are still working this year when I checked! So good buy.

If you want to get more detailed make the PVC version.

They look great and are a little more substantial. 

With these you can see some of the ridges of the roll and imperfections but barely, and when its dark you will never notice.

 Darkness is our Friend!