Kali Maaa!

The Kali maa cage is a pretty central piece and I've mostly been just collecting pieces for it, but I finally began construction on it the other day.  Lots of math and tweaking of pipe.  My hand was a bit sore from having to make so many cuts with the pipe cutter.  But the shape I'm pretty pleased with and it inadvertently will make a great photo op maybe next year?  For the Halloween party definitely I can sneak some people in there.  I painted it a coppery color, partly to add color and partly to make it shine a bit.  I also fixed a section that will go over 2 pieces of rebar so that it's more stable in the yard.  I ended up using yardsticks for the bars--which the only downside of is that the marks and 'home depot' is engraved in the sticks, so if you look close you can still see the writing, but whatever, I'm not going to worry about it too much.  **UPDATE**  Added some skulls to the sides which I know isn't cannon.  But...you know...artistic license!

Bone Fence

I reconstructed the old Jurassic Park fence today.  It'll serve well as a Kali maa skull fence.  I'm going to steal Sam to help me get it spray painted black/rusty before attaching a bunch of the skulls and bones I've made.  I haven't made too many bones--or rather, I have supplies to make many more--just because I'm not entirely sure how far they'll stretch on the fence.  Some trial and error is required.

Eye can see you...

New toy obtained, though not for this year--doesn't quite fit into the Indiana Jones theme, so I'm thinking Mom will be borrowing it for this time around.  I got it at Walmart for $13, which has a quite respectable amount of cool Halloween stuff--I also picked up some cool paper plates.  The voice could be a little clearer--some phrases it kind of mumbles a bit, but it's all in a spooky voice, so you get the gist of the phrase.  Will have to figure out a year that I can use him properly.

Cauldron light

I finally constructed the cauldron light!

Supplies

• 1 Plastic bowl
• Black decor chain
• Great stuff 
• Paint
• Wire, 18 gauge

First off was to make some flames with the great stuff.  Pretty much like making seaweed from a few years ago, but not connected in one solid piece.  I ended up trimming pieces off a few of them to make them a bit more flamey, but generally easy.  I painted them with a layer of gold, then yellow and red.   I painted the plastic bowl gold inside and then black on the outside (or rather, the design that was already on a black bowl)

Once everything was dried, I used a socket light to put the extender in and used the wire to make a loop that fit around the extender.  I played with the chain a bit until I got a length that would be short enough to hide the bulb among the 'flames'.  I drilled 3 holes in the bowl near the rim and attached the chain pieces, then attached the chain to the ring around the extender.  Once all the chain was on, I went around the bowl and glued down the 'flames' around the rim.  Then I hooked in my new light that can change colors and played with a few different looks.  But ultimately, the orange light will go in this one.  

Let there be LIGHT! and MUSIC!

New Toy!!!  I came across this the other day and got very excited.  I had actually gotten a lightbulb bluetooth speaker for the back porch for music but this is a colored bulb that's a bluetooth speaker...and you can change colors with your phone.  Ooooh....Anyways, it arrived today and I've just been playing.  The great thing about it is that I can pair it with my phone and play Indiana Jones soundtrack via Spotify and it also doubles as an extra light out there.  I'm not sure that it will work real with a timer (may have to play a bit) but even if it's just for Halloween, that's a much cooler speaker.  It goes super loud (which has been a problem in the past) and I can get the music right out front where my trick-or-treaters can hear it.  And with the light, I can play around with different colors without plugging in different colors.  Verra excited.

Are you my mummy?

Twas time to begin construction on the mummy!  It was a nice cool night out and got the urge to really get a start on the mummy box.  I had a large 4'x8' piece of Styrofoam cut down a bit at home depot and did quite a bit of measuring (and well, remeasuring) and math to figure out how best to construct this thing.  That said, it's a pretty simple construction.  Basically a box with a half a lid.  The 'mummy' will only be a torso with arms and a head, the cover as if it was ripped out.  Still deciding if I want the arms to be outstretched or crossed.  Used gorilla glue on this one, and after a little patience, had a nice box that's about 5 feet tall by about 2 feet wide, with a depth of just under 10".  I'm going to let it set overnight before painting it or putting on the foam.  I'll probably paint it first before the foam.  The foam is just to give the basic form of a torso and something to stick the arms into (or rest on, depending on which way I go).  I've got gauze bandages that I'm planning on dipping in paper mache (or rather, watered down wallpaper paste) and building up some bandages.  But it's definitely on it's way!

Skull rings!

Skull rings have arrived!  They're a little less 'adjustable' in the sense that they don't have metal pieces that bend, but plastic that pinches a bit, but will give way to a larger finger.  Meh. Can't always have everything ideal.  They'll work just fine for little kid fingers, and some with larger fingers who want skull bling.  Although now I'm realizing that there may be arguments over colors.  There are 4 different ones on the skull rings, 3 on the spiders, and 4 on the snakes.  Hopefully the 'choose wisely' will deter any arguments.  *crossed fingers*  Although, most of my trick or treaters are in and out pretty quickly; if they linger, it's usually out of my sight on the front lawn.  Though maybe that'll change a bit this year--some pretty cool stuff on the porch this year.

Lovely bones

So I got a bunch of skulls at the dollar store, but I started to worry that I would a) run out of skulls pretty quick and b) might look a bit odd if I didn't have enough.  I mean ideally, I'd love to have hundreds of skulls and do a catacombs-esque wall *sigh*....but that's a whole lot of skulls.  So I looked around for filler.  Plastic bones, femurs and such, are wicked expensive if you get them reasonably sized.  And if they're going on a fence, the 3-4 inch ones aren't quite going to work.  So I started to look up making my own bones.  Obviously the first thing I ran into was paper mache bones.  I wasn't opposed per se, but that's still a lot of work for the number I'm looking at. Plus, I was hoping for a much quicker kind of a project.  So I started thinking about cheap, readily available products I had that would also be weather durable.  After some musing, I came up with what I consider a fairly brilliant idea.  *toots own horn*.

"Why did it have to be snakes?!?"

This project wasn't quite as bad as I was anticipating.  I mean, I expected it to be filled with horror and constant shuddering...so anything short of that was going to be amazing.  Like Indy, I loathe snakes.  Something about them sends major signals to my primitive lizard brain that scream "DANGER! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE!!"  So doing a snake hat was something I knew was going to be challenging.  I considered getting a fake one, but everything I looked at was super expensive for the size I needed--and then I'm left with an expensive snake that I feel like I shouldn't throw out.  Plus they weren't stiff enough to be posed.  Except for the plushie ones and they couldn't be out in the elements.  So I circled back around to making one of my own.  After a little pinterest mining for ideas, I decided to go with the stiff wire with a pool noodle around it.  Which worked out really well.  I also covered him in foam just because the pool noodle isn't great at taking paint, and it made him a little more weather proof and able to blend in with the carved head.

First Halloween Scouting trip

Halloween has hit the stores with a boom and suddenly it's the most wonderful time of the year!  So it was time for a little scouting.  Nowadays it's rare that I'll buy props--I'm much more likely to buy parts to make props, but you never know.  MAYBE I'l find the perfect prop that will complete the yard.  So scouting must take place.  Plus, I wanted to see if the dollar tree had their skulls out yet.  So first up was Zurchers, where I picked up a roll of gold tablecloth (aka, my backdrop for the porch).  While there I found a gorgeous zombie/corpse guy that I'm seriously debating about getting.  He's $158, which is pretty steep, but actually pretty average for that type of thing.  Anyway, he would be a perfect "Crap, I just chose the wrong grail goblet" guy or a white walker for (potentially) next year.  Plus, he doesn't have a long thing where he says stuff--I hate that.  He just moans and lurches around.  But I still want to price him and consider options before committing.

Choose Wisely

So part of my plan for the porch section is to dress up as the holy grail knight and dispense treats.  But how you ask?  Ah.  So Indy has to make a choice between potential grail cups.  My thought was to bring over that choice with a selection of treats, which I've recently obtained.  But how to have them choose?  This is where the treat dispensary comes in.  I basically just glued together a half of a box with styrofoam and 3 sections that are big enough to cover a treat bowl.  I'm planning on cutting out hand-size holes over each one and then adding some cloth or around the hole to make it hard to see which hole has what treat.  I've also carved "Choose Wisely" into the front.  And I have plans to murmur "he chose...poorly" while looking sadly at a skeleton I'll have all broken in a corner.