Sketching time! (2019)

Wow.  Late June.  I realize that's pretty late for my usual planning.  But I got sidetracked by life and maintenance and just keeping things running.  Also I had a totally different plan that I was prodding, trying to make into a thing.  But I realized it's a wee ambitious and will take more energy than I have this year to make it into a thing.  So instead, I'm doing.... (insert drumroll....)

HOCUS POCUS!!!

Yaaay!  Okay, so my original plan was to try and do a Game of Thrones theme.  Good year for it having just wrapped up.  But it's going to take some massive projects that I'm not quite up for this year.  Sam and I got brainstorming and debated a medieval theme or a spooky castle theme...before finally ending up on a Hocus Pocus theme.  We both love the movie, and it got me excited in a way that I know is an indication that it's going to be a good theme to work on for me.  I've found over the years that I have to be excited about whatever it is that the theme is--even if it's no theme.  I just wasn't feeling the Game of Thrones theme this year, so out it goes.  So I already have a few plans and projects that I'm going to build.  Though I'm going to repurpose a lot of what I already have or redo a bunch of stuff that I'm way familiar with--gravestones for example.

So for the front yard--just your basic cemetery with specialized gravestones for the Sanderson sisters, and the Binxes, and one for Billy.  I would love to have a wandering Billy actor in my graveyard, but that might not be possible this year.

For the porch, I just want to do a recreation of the Sanderson cottage/museum.  So hanging cages with skeletons, a large cauldron, potion shelves, just generalized spooky/Halloween decor--again, repurposing a lot of what I already have.

For builds--
I found this amazing potion light box that someone did for a Harry Potter theme (squee!)  that looks incredible, and potentially doable.  Sam has convinced me that I could put it in the main window, avoiding some of the problems of having tons of glass/potion bottles on the front porch with the wind.  If possible, I'd like to build two of these and put them in a brick shelf situation inside.  Then have various bottles with weird colored water in them.  It's basically a light box, but the light only comes up through small holes, not the entire thing.

For the cauldon, I found another DIY of someone who added a fog machine to their cauldron along with great stuff embers, and a green fire and ice bulb.  It may be a bit of trial and error with the fog machine, but I'd like to try it at least.  Instead of creepy cloth covering the top and dispersing the fog a bit (instead of billowing), I'd like to rig some kind of large bowl to cover most of the top (but with some space of the edges, and then use that as the 'treat' bowl.  For treats I was thinking of toys that would be like the ingredients of the potion--sticky lizards, spider rings, maybe some kind of eye toy?  Not sure, research needed.


I also want to make the classic spell book.  If the cauldron treat bowl doesn't pan out, I suppose I could use a box book as the base of the spell book and put the treats in there.

At this point, the main concern I have is the costumes.  I've conned Sam into playing Mary, I'll go as Winnifred, and I think I can pull in the last remaining sister, Sarah from a friend.  The three have such iconic looks, so I've been watching clips to write down what they're actually wearing, and then checking out cosplays that people have actually managed to pull off.  There's so much variation out there, the trick is in the colors and attitude more than the exact replica of the costumes from the movie.  So I have plans.  And I think they're relatively reasonable plans too.  Rare.  I'm sure it'll creep up on me soon.  I mean, only what...127 days til Halloween....huh...well subtract a month because I like to get me stuff up early...that's less than 100 days...fuuuuu.......gotta go...