Yesterday I found a deal of the century at Lowes. Now I just need to get back there with a truck before its gone. They have sections of plastic fencing that look like the wrought iron fencing… This stuff is normally $56 a section for a 6 ft long section… The clearance price… $14… OOO OHHH OHHH I WANT!!! How freaking cool would that be to have real fencing to put up for my haunted graveyard!!!

Anyone got a truck handy?

Yes, it’s June… Yes, I’m thinking about Halloween…

I’m thinkign this year, as a bit of a change up… why not do a pirate themed display…

I coudl possibly turn the porch into a pirate ship…

the skeletons are all easliy dressable as pirates….

i could possibly even turn the lawnmower into a dinghy…  make some cannons… make a fake ship front to stand up in front of the hedges…  make a crows nest for the roof of the porch… use whit painters tarp in place of the black plastic i use for light blocking for the ghost…. give the ghost a ships wheel…  I could possibly even turn the ghost 90 degrees to make it look correct, even if i dont it might work… I have the ramp to use for “walking the plank” or at least as a boarding ramp… God knows I have enough pirate stuff…   I could slap a bandanna and eye patch on the puppet and replace one hand with a hook…   I may have to sketch this out and see what it looks like…  It might be fun, and put a bit of new life into the display…

hmm…

Anyone have any thoughts?

Ok, I just did a small inventory. I have 18 of the 18 gallon storage bins full of Halloween decor. Then there are the itemes to large to fit in those bins like the popup jumper, my Menards full size skeleton, the tree, and all of the tombstones. There is probably something wrong with me…

This year I have taken a bigger step in my Halloween haunting.   In the past I’ve had a number of effects but they were all manually operated.   Last year when I added the 9ft skeleton puppet, I was no longer able to operate my effects.   I left the controls with Palley but she was often to busy to trigger things.   I had mentioned this problem to Dave shortly afterwards and he of course laughed and told me not to worry, he would be here to run things for me this year.   That of course won’t be happening.   So, I have decided to go high tech…

Back in February I had went in on a group buy for a basic stamp based micro controller, I was going to use this to create some other prob yet to be decided upon, but now it seemed to be the easiest solution to my problem.  Over the past month or so, I have been learning to program the controller, and wiring it to run a number of effects.   This includes the crow, the pop up jumper, and the buzzer.  Now because of the extra outputs on the controller I added LED based spotlights, and pulsating eyes on my popup jumper.    That still left me with a few outputs on the controller board though.   Not being one to waste a perfectly good event controller output, I decided I should think of some other prop to trigger.

Last Friday, while out with some friends, we went into the “Spirit” Halloween store.   While there I of course drooled over a number of things there.  I had made up my mind to NOT buy anything though and be good.   That was until I saw a Flying grim reaper that contained blue L.E.D.s to illuminate its face…  must not pass up blue L.E.D.s…  ….  So I broke down and bought it.     I noticed also when I bought it, it had a “try me” button.  I was hoping the try me button would actually trigger the entire unit.  It seemed at 1st like it would.  So I set about figuring out a way to remotly press the button.  While wandering through Wal-Mart Sunday I discovered a really cheap R/C car on clearance for $5.   Perfect.   A few minutes later in the parking lot I had removed the screws holding the car together and found it contained a tiny receiver board hosting a single chip receiver, that has at least 4 channels possibly 5 or 6.    After mapping out the circuit, I inserted my own resistor/transistor pair on one of the outputs, and wired it to the try me button on the flying ghoul.  Sure enough the remote triggered the try me.   I was elated.  I then hung the ghoul up, and triggered it.   The lights and audio triggered, but no motor.  I should have realized that in a demo mode you wouldn’t want to run to motor and burn it out.  Ooops…  That leaves the built in sound sensor.
Sound operated props are only slightly more reliable than those activated by a photo resistor in my opinion, and they certainly don’t lend themselves to easy control.
I didn’t want to dismantle the prop so I had to figure out way to trigger it remotely.   What I essentially came up with was an audio relay.  I stopped at radio shack and bought a small buzzer and wired it into the receiver form the R/C car.  Sure enough it triggers the ghoul just fine.  So now I will wire the remote to the prop controller and it will only take a short  burst of the buzzer to set off the flying grim reaper. 

Wooohooo…

HA!!!

I finally have gotten around to experimenting with the PROP-1 board I bought back in March.   Tonight I made a trip to Radio Shack, and bought a few relays and after some pretty ugly hardware hacking (I didn’t bring my soldering iron to work today)  I managed to get one of my halloween props controlled by the PROP-1.   I had initially thoght I would be a bit more fancy about how I was going to run the triggering inside the little squacking crow but the more I mapped out the circuit in the crow the more problems I kept running into.  I finally setted on just using a reed relay and inserting it with the “test” button on the crow.  The relay coil is then powered directly from one of the outputs of the prop-1.  Now when the prop-1 sees motion from its PIR sensor it fires off a couple events, one of which is to squack the crow.   I had also planned on using the CRYDOM SSR’s to control my foggers and the pop up jumper, but when I ordered them they only had 2 in stock.  That left me with one to few relay control. So for the moment I have rigged up a DPDT relay on another output of the prop-1.   The interesting thign about this is that I coudl theoretically control the two foggers quite easil now off one pin on the PROP-1.  I setup a loop in the cotroller that is its wait state while looking for the PIR.  during this loop it counts up to a set number, and then when that number hits it toggles teh state of the relay.  This in theory, if timed right should give me the ability to have constant fog.  While one fogger re-heats the other fogger starts fogging.  I worry thoguh that this will have a few unwated side effects.  The 1st being that there will be to much fog.  The second side effect would be that the fog juice will be consumed much to fast and I will run the risk of destroying the foggers.  (Granted I got them both for $5 at the end of the season closeout  at Target but i’d rather not destroy them.)  I am considering modding the foggers to have larger tanks… or to draw from the bottles of juice directly.  The other alternative, would be to use a float switch that kills power to the foggers when the juice runs out.  I’m pretty sure thought the fog juice would gum up the switch.  I’ll have to think on that one some more.   I still have a few weeks yet.  Now its time to pac this stuff up and go home though.

Today I have been feeling a little productive.  I repaired the leaky faucet in the kitchen, and replaced the old antique door knob/latch that has lately been falling apart more often than I care to repair it.     After that though I was sitting in the living room and still felt some creative juices flowing… so I got into my collection of foam pumpkins, and pulled out one and went to work on it.

The results are below:

(more…)

Today I received my candle flicker circuit kits from Vellman. Two of the three kits were fully entactd. The third was missing the printed circut board. I assembled the two kits and am pretty happy with the results. I placed them in two of the foam carved pumpkins and they look pretty good. I emailed the company I bought the kit from but have not yet received any response. If I don’t hear anything this week I’ll call them on the phone next week sometime.

There was a post on another board I follow asking :

How did you celebrate Halloween as a kid? Do you find that appropriate?/Are you happy with that? How do you celebrate it now?

I responded, and then decided so as not to loose the message I would place it here as well.

Those that really know me probably have wondered this question a lot this past month as I’ve been pretty preoccupied getting ready.
Yesterday
As a child Halloween was celebrated at our house with a few paper decorations and a single light up plastic pumpkin standing next to a cat which my grandma would put in the living room window about 2 weeks before Halloween. (I wish I could find it now because I always enjoyed looking at it ) In the weeks prior to Halloween night my grandmother, and mother would work together to sew whatever costume I wanted for the year. Some were elaborate, others weren’t. It really depended on what they could come up with. On Halloween night my grandmother would always make sure we had enough candy for the Trick-or-Treaters (TOT’s) and would put it into a bowl just inside the front door where she would sit and wait for the kids to arrive. My mother was usually working night shifts unless Halloween happened to fall on a day she had off so she often wasn’t home for the nights fun.
Most years I would get dressed in the costume provided (with help) and head out on my own down our street. (It was a much simpler time, and our street is very well lit) Occasionally I would team up with a friend and her mother but usually I was alone. I’m not much of a candy fan so I never really cared what they gave me, it was more about getting out and seeing how much I could collect, and to just have fun. Halloween night it didn’t matter who you were you could be anyone, or anything you wanted to be. I think that’s actually part of what I enjoy about faire, the ability to re-invent yourself for a day / weekend. I almost always loved Halloween as a kid although I do remember one year my mother had off and she made herself a scary witch costume. She surprised me a day or so before when she finished it by tucking me into bed while wearing it. I was about six or seven and I was completely terrified. But after she took off the mask and I saw everything was ok, we laughed about it and it’s become a fun family memory. (I do still have that mask in my bins of Halloween stuff)

As far as the question of appropriateness goes, looking back I find it very appropriate and certainly wouldn’t change that for anything in the world. I think Halloween is a wonderful tradition and a great way to help kids overcome fears of things that go bump in the night. There are far worse things in the world to be afraid of, and Halloween is a great way to have safe fun.

Today
Ahhh How do I celebrate Halloween now… MUAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA…

A few of my neighbors would always decorate their houses with ghosts (made from bed sheets or pillows) and stuffed dummies and I recall our mayor dressing up as a stuffed dummy a number of years and terrifying people when he would actually move or talk to them. The idea of that always seemed fun to me even when I was the one getting scared by him and when I hit sixth grade there really wasn’t much draw to go trick or treating anymore especially since I didn’t like the candy. I decided then I would stay home on Halloween and do my best to scare kids like my neighbor did. I would wear a scary mask and hide in the bushes or in a darkened corner of the porch and pop out at the kids my age or older and try to scare them. It worked a lot of times, and was always great fun. They too seemed to enjoy it and always left chuckling after they had recovered from the initial shock. As the years progressed I started adding more and more decorations to make the house even spookier. In eighth grade my friends and I even built a haunted house in my garage, we charged $.50 admission and most people left screaming. (I think I must have had something to do with the life sized stuffed dummy we had hanging from a noose that would drop right in front of the exit as they were leaving. ) To my surprise it was a hit, and the neighbors were quite disappointed when I didn’t do it the next year. I often volunteered with the areas haunted house to see what fun I could have, and started getting asked by other people to help them with their decorations as well but I always did the most for my own house.
Things stayed at a relative standstill on the level of complexity of my house haunt for a number of years, until I discovered the internet, and found that I wasn’t the only one doings stuff like this. At that point I not only found others doing similar setups, but found that they were willing to share their plans for their props. I immediately set upon building the various props and putting into place ideas I had received online. I started noticing the number of TOT’s increasing each year as I added more props. It seemed word of mouth was taking off and that only severed to drive me to do more. (still does, I might add) I am pretty much the only game in town now when it comes to decorating for Halloween, and in a town of 1400 people the fact that I get around 300 kids (that make it to the door) every year tells me I’m doing something right. This Halloween the Village board stopped and asked me in the middle of the board meeting if the hours they had chosen for trick or treat were ok with me.
Each year I try to add a little more to keep people guessing. This year I added a 9 ft skeleton puppet I designed, and built that I wear and interact with people with. It was a major hit, drawing in people from all over town. It seems the kids would go home and then drag their parents back to meet and interact with the big skeleton. (They affectionately named him “Mr. Skeleton Man”) Although we don’t actually keep count of the adults, I believe we had between 150 to 200 adults this year as well. It is really heartwarming to see and hear the families together out to enjoy the night. I constantly overhear parents telling their kids things like “Ohhh here comes the scary house, remember how you used to be so afraid, and now you’ve been talking about it for the past week.” Those are the only rewards I need to encourage me to keep it up year after year.

And that’s how I celebrate Halloween now.

Update:
I would also like to toss in that I, like Doug, do not go for gore. I work towards spooky, and scary, with out the need for gore. I also, due to vandalism, put everyhitng up the morning of Halloween, and take everything down after trick or treating. I used to decorate for Christams 10x more than I do for halloween but my displays were ALWAYS destroyed. People (prolly teens on town with notheing better to do) would come and take wire cutters and cut light strings, bash in expensive figures, unplug every cord they could find, etc.. etc.. so I no longer decorate heavily for Christmas. I put out a wreath or two, and the nativity scene. The rest, whats left of it, is resigned to stay in my basement for eternity.

I heard about a great deal today and I pounced on it. Target has 75% off on all Halloween items. That means their $20 fog machines are $5. I bought two of them. They run for a pretty good amount of time, and have remotes. I think with a little Wohlers magic, I can team the two foggers to make a constant fog. I believe I can tap into the “Ready” light on unit one with a relay so that when it is off unit two triggers. Then when unit one becomes ready again it should automatically kick off unit two, at least thats the theory anyway.
One thing I do hate about fog machines is the smell of the fog. There has got to be a way to make fog smell better with out clogging up the machine. Oh well, for $5 I shouldn’t really complain.

Tonight I tried carving a challenging pattern into one of the foam ‘fake’ pumpkins. It turned out surprisingly well. I’m planning on using it for my floating candle next year.

I just got back from my after Halloween binge shopping trip. Big Lots (by me at least) have tons of skulls for ~$3. They also had some cool large carvable foam pumpkins. Joanne fabrics have smaller carvable foam pumpkins for ~$6. I carved one of them a little bit ago and they seem to work well. I now need to decide on how I’m gign to light them. I think the flicker LED method would be best but I’m not sure how that circuit works. I’ll have to look online and see if anyone has it.
Michaels had some nice props and their stuff is all 50% off. They also had multiple sizes of foam carvable pumpkins. Dollar General had some cheap masks, and strings of orange lights.

Wow what a day / night. This was probably one of the best Halloweens I’ve ever had. The slight rain certainly didn’t put a damper on my spirits. (pun intended) We had a pretty good turn out of 284 kids that actually made it to the porch to get candy. We lost count of the number to scared by the new puppet and my buddy Christopher. At last count there were 20 that were scared off. Most of those were pre-teen girls who were just out for fun anyway. We didn’t count the number of adults waiting in the wings but there was easily another 200 of them.

To say the new 9-10 ft creature, affectionately dubbed “Mr. Skeleton Man” by the neighborhood kids, was a hit would be an understatement of colossal size. I posed for pictures with kids. I gave out hugs. I chased pre-teen girls who were out to be scared. I waved at kids. I waved at parents. I waved at passing cars. I even waved at the police. I had conversations with little kids, adults, teens, even grandparents. It was amazing. I would say 80% of them never once looked for me , they were content talking away to the creatures head. It never really occurred to them to look lower. It was Halloween, and talking to a 10 ft skeleton carrying a black rose is completely normal on Halloween.
I can’t even begin to describe all the emotions I’m feeling right now but boy do I feel good. It really has made me feel great that people appreciate and enjoy what I do. Who would have known 2 months ago when this little idea sprung into my head that it would have turned out so well and that it would have been received so well by the town.

I tested the giant goul yesterday and found its performance satisfactory. There were a few issues with the cloth that has to be addressed. I was able to walk around and manuver pretty well. I did however have to make changes to the hand grips to make it easier to manipulate. The neighbor girls across the street got a big kick out of it.

The house is a 8 ft tall playhouse, jsut to give you an idea of scale.
To see more pictures of the goul in action visit my 2005 House Display Photo gallery.

Tonight I finished the basic structure of the giant puppet. So far it still seems light enough to manuver easily in and it has a good range of motion. I decided to attach the arm joints with some waxed twine to allow for maximum flexibility.

I ordered and received the HS-125 voice amplifier from Hisonic International, and it seems like it is definitly going to help keep me from losing my voice. It doesn’t really handle low frequency ranges well but I will make due. I stopped by the local radio shack today and picked up a 20′ extension cable for the mic. It turns out this is the perfect length. I was able to run the cable up the ’spine’ of the puppet. I then ran the cable down the right arm and down the support arm used to manipulate the arm. The cable loops back up the arm and over to the amplifier located just below the neck. The reason for this long loop is so that I can add in a switch to turn off the mic when I do not want to be amped.

Well, becasue I’m a terrible procrastinator and becasue I’ve been busy with Renaissace Faire stuff, I haven’t really gotten going on Halloween yet this year. Or Perhaps I should rephrase that, hadn’t really gotten going… This of course is compleetly undetectable by my neighbors or the rest of the town becasue my entire display usually goes up in one day and down that very night. (Less vandalism that way) So anyway, I was in a store with a friend last week and we came across a foam giant skull. (Mightmare factory sells them as item # VA696) The minute I saw it I knew I had to have it. You see I have been wanting to create a ‘giant puppet’ type prop for my yard haunt for years. Now that I have the skull I have purchased other supplies I think I will need to build it. I plan on posting pictures of the progress as I go, and hopefully in the next 10 days I’ll actually be able to create somethign that will work for my needs. Ahh nothing like waiting until the last minute.