Progress on my latest projects and other stuff here at the Dead End workshop for Halloween 2008
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11/01/2008:
Well, Halloween kinda sucked too. Here are the pics until I can get them onto a web page:
http://s62.photobucket.com/albums/h100/ghostessdeanna/halloween2008/Hallnight08/
I was happy to have my Mom, her fiance' Gary and my sisters and nephews here though. My best friend and her mom and kids came by as well. That part was good. Low ToT numbers, low enthusiasm on my part, and crappy rainy weather sucked though.
Updated 10/30/2008
Wow... what a boring party.
I haven't really got anything new and exciting to report other than the new party page, and it's not all that super duper. I am looking forward to ToT though. I have 4 nights off in a row and I can spend today and tomorrow tweaking the yard display and just chilling. My mom is coming to town this weekend too, which will be nice since she's never actually seen my whole display in person.
Updated 10/12/2008
2:19 AM - I've managed to get about 8 boxes emptied and into the attic, and have another 3 more in the garage waiting to go up there too. Been pretty cranky the past couple of days though, and not really feeling like doing any of this. At one point yesterday, I almost said "screw it" and just canceled it all. Thankfully, the feeling passed, and I'm kind of back on track. I still have so much to do, it's just not even funny. The house is barely half done. I had to order more gossamer since I'm tired of piecing together a bunch of scraps for certain spots on the walls. I don't want a ton of staple holes this year, so I'm having to wait 'til the gossamer gets here to finish the main hallway and foyer. I have a handful of invitations to get out still as well. I'm REALLY feeling the drunch now, only 13 more days until the party.
I added a new page to the site on what to expect as far as pricing for the things that most of us use for our props and stuff. I took a couple of hours and hit Home Depot and jotted down the prices of the common things that haunters have in their workshops. Of course, some things will vary from store to store, state to state, etc... but it can give people a general idea of what to expect for how much things cost. Click the link below for more info:
Also, yesterday, my son left his airsoft junk laying in the walk way in front of the door leading to the garage. Andy tripped over said junk, fell and broke a tombstone and knocked over Grim. The tombstone was easy enough to fix with some Gorilla Glue. Grim has a nice flat spot on his head now, but I don't think anyone will really notice. I'm just glad Andy didn't break his own neck or anything.
Updated update: 4:25 AM: Just finished adding the page for the 2008 invitations for this year's party. Boring, but they'll do. It's more than what some people do for theirs. :) In addition, I've put together a short video on burning the edges of paper for that old paper look for scrolls and book pages and stuff. It's on the 2008 invite page and on the tips and tricks page.
That's about all I have to report for now.
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10/09/08
5:00 AM: Well, I haven't totally gotten my Halloween Mojo back yet... but it's slowly creeping back into my head and heart. I pretty much finished up the Monster Mud re-vamp of "Grim" and have gotten all of the boxes down from the attic. I've been slowly going through them and getting the gossamer and beef netting webs up on the walls, along with the yearly cleaning that goes with moving the furniture around.
Just after 3 AM this morning, I finished labeling the invitations and they are ready to be taken to the post office or hand delivered later this afternoon. Work is taking its toll on my time and energy, but everything will get done, so no worries. The only issue I have now is the fact that I will be working on Friday night/ Saturday morning before the party on the 25th. The good thing is that my costume for this year is a zombie, so I won't need to spend too much time trying to look like one. ;-)
I'll be adding the newest page to the site later today for the 2008 invitations as well as the party info page for those who will be getting invitations. For my local friends who want to come to the party, but aren't on the yearly list, please shoot me an email and I'll send you some info on the particulars for the event.
I'm sure some of you noticed some down time for the site lately, plus some issues with bandwidth for the images on the site. I will be moving this site and the Florida Haunters site to a new host soon. Somehow, I also had a problem with Photobucket and managed to use up all my bandwidth at the end of September so it reset on the 30th, then it happened again 2 days into October! I'm not sure how the hell that happened and it's never happened before, but I went ahead and paid for the Pro account so I don't have that problem again since most of the pictures are in my photobucket account to save room on the server that the site is hosted on. Also, several of my older pictures are hosted on AOL's ftp from before I had a website, so those are all going to be moved before the end of this month. AOL is shutting down its "Hometown" and ftp service on Halloween, of all days. Anyone who has anything linked back to those will need to change their links.
With that, I'm going to head of to catch some zzzz's so I can finish up the inside decorating later today.
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9/19/08
Today, I broke my lack of motivation and I started working on a prop that is in dire need of rejuvenation. I got Grim out of the garage and began his new make-over. I also added a new section on my projects page for the big spider I made many moons ago. There's no pictures since I didn't document the process, but I explained how I did it since I get so many questions about the two of them. I've added some new content to the "Tips and Tricks" page as well this evening.
If you haven't already seen it or joined, please take a moment to check out the all-new Garage of Evil network on Ning. Steve-O decided it was time to branch out, so we have a new place to play. It's pretty darn on-topic and loaded with lots of good info. Come on out and see what's going on at the Garage:
7/29/08
On July 26, I hosted the Florida Haunters Make and Take/one year anniversary for our forum and site. I had 9 fellow haunters (and a daughter) come to Orange Park to join me in making a leering prop and hanging out at the Dead End. I had spent so much time in the last 3 days prior to that afternoon trying to catch up after a small back injury that I was really running low on energy. I snapped out of that real quick when I saw my first guests drive up! I know I had a great time, and I hope that everyone else enjoyed themselves too. Of course, I was my usual disorganized self, with so many plans for today that got pushed to the side because of other things, but we got the prop's main assembly done with the assistance of the super guys we are lucky enough to have in our group. I met a couple of new people Saturday and got reacquainted with everyone I have been lucky enough to know already. It was pretty darn hot, and we had a rain shower which gave us a chance to go inside for some lunch, and thankfully it blew over fairly quickly. SpiderFreak brought his completed prop to show, and holy skeletons, Bat Man - that thing is AWESOME!!
Congrats to SpiderFreak on winning the Bucky in the drawing!!! I'm positive that Bucky will have a wonderful home with him. Big thanks to Noahbody, Coda, Spiderfreak and Jack for doing all the cutting and measuring and making sure we had everything done right. We learned more about how to wire the power supplies to the motors and that's a major accomplishment when learning to make your own props. Huge thank you to IshWitch, who brought some of the stuff for the drawings (and those sheets will go to very good use!!) - you rock girlfriend!! Same goes to Jack and Charlotte who brought a tshirt for the giveaway. Thank you so much everyone; y'all just don't know what I means to me that you came up for this. The rest of the pictures can be found here:
Moving along, I have started a new blog, which I mentioned at the end of my last entry on the homepage here. So far, it's been a quiet blog, but I am trying to enter new content as often as I can. Today, I made a post that I think is very important to share with the rest of my Halloween/Haunter family. Please take a look, and help out if you can. I'd like to thank Steve-O from the Garage of Evil for posting the original link for this great cause and spurring me to share it. Save the Boobies!
http://ghostessdeanna.blogspot.com/
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07/19/08
Well... where to start since last time I updated.... Oh yeah - FLORIDA HAUNTERS!!! We're having our next make and take here at the Dead End next weekend. I still need to get the stuff down from the attic so I can decorate the formal dining room for the little lunch buffet I'm going to throw out there. It's our one year anniversary of the Florida Haunters Forum and website, so I wanna do something a little special for the occasion. Kinda like a mini- Halloween party, so-to-speak.
I'm excited about our next prop too. I have all the parts needed to complete it, and that is also on the list of things I need to do this week. I'm guessing I'll do the demo, unless I can persuade someone else to do it!! By now, most people know my fear of the spotlight. Anyway, for the make and take, I'm also doing some drawings and door prizes. I've decided on a BUCKY for the grand prize, in the hopes that it will draw in some more people to show up. I've got some prop making supplies as well for the other drawings and stuff, like DryLok, a gallon of glue, a roll of burlap, etc. I'm slowly fillin' up a box of door prizes and such with stuff I just happened to see in stores and what-not.
In other news, our Florida Haunters Make and Take was featured on Channel 66.6 HM Radio! Big thanks to Kevin Kovak for helping us to get the word out! Y'all give him a listen at: http://hauntedradio.50webs.com/ -- Good stuff there!!!
I've also been thrown into the light forcefully (just kidding Johnny!) by my buddy Johnny over at Home Haunt News. I did an interview with Melissa for the August issue. It's really weird to be actually known these days. I've always been one of those fly under the radar type of people, so to be asked to do an interview is both neat and intimidating for me. I hope I didn't come off as too much of a dork. Melissa made it painless though, and I wish her the best of luck in her new role in the steadily growing Home Haunters News and Reviews Magazine. Y'all check it out!
http://www.homehauntnews.com/august08.html
And finally, the rest of the latest news... I finally bought myself a Budget bart. He's smaller than a Bucky, but MUCH lighter and easier to work with. He also costs almost half what a Bucky costs. I'm thinking of gathering an army of them. That is, if I get another job some time soon! The current gig isn't paying enough for new toys!! I've been doing the job search thing for a while now, with no luck. One or two bites, but nothing's come of them. Please wish me some luck, cross those fingers and toes, stick pins in a voodoo doll, light a candle, pray if that's your thing, whatever --- I need the good juju! I also got my first 2 T-shirts from CafePress for the Florida Haunters. I didn't make the logo big enough for my taste, but I guess they look okay for a first attempt. I'm going to try to tweak it some, maybe put some sort of graphic or something on the back. I'm not quite sure I'm ready to show them though. Anyway, I think that's about all the newest ramblings that I have.
Oh, and a mini-addition - I started a new blog, just for Halloween stuff, to better keep up with what's going on here at the Dead End:
http://ghostessdeanna.blogspot.com/
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6/20/08
I finished up a batch of 6 new tombstones and revised my old tombstone tutorial to reflect the stuff I've learned over the past few years. It's much more detailed now, with better explanations and pictures of each step.
I bought a bunch of stuff at thrift stores to convert to Halloween stuff. Of course, now I have lost the inspiration for them and I have no idea what to do with them. I do know that I have some neat stuff to put on the next batch of tombstones though.
We had our St Augustine gathering last weekend with the Florida Haunters. Friday night was meet and greet at the hotel, which I couldn't make. I hear they had a great time and the Piņa Ghouladas were great. :) Saturday morning, we all met at Crescent Beach under a pavillion for some hanging out time. Thanks to John and his wife Cathy for being super hosts and for cooking up some really delicious grub! The kids, Bucky, and I had a good time and the beach was really nice that day. Good waves, plenty of sun and awesome company! Saturday night, Andy and I drove back to St Augustine to meet everyone for our Ghost Hunt Tour. The night was muggy and warm, but it was a good time. Our tour guide Harry was a really nice man and gave some interesting history talks to us along with fascinating information about paranormal investigation and activity. Even to a skeptic like myself, the whole experience was pretty cool. We even got to carry EMF detectors, which was kinda neat. The whole event lasted for almost 3 hours, which was way better than the hour long tours everyone else offered. All in all a really nice weekend! I wish I could have hung out with everyone more though. Always next time!
And now, on to the next gathering plans! The next official make and take will be held here at my place on July 26. We'll be making a "leering" prop. This make and take will be a little more special as we're celebrating the Florida Haunters Forum's first year anniversary! There will be drawings for prizes with one special drawing for a bigger prize to be announced later, as well as door prizes, so everyone attending will go home with something. Some special dishes will be served for the occasion too. I'm really hoping that gas prices don't keep everyone away as this one is not a make and take to miss!
And in other news, I'm currently working on a couple of new props for this year's display. Finally! I'll also be repairing many of the old things that are broken soon too so I can hopefully have them ready for the make and take to show and tell. I also have some new photos to make new logos for the Florida Haunters site and I started a CafePress store to launch some merchandise. Hopefully soon I can get some decent artwork ready for the CafePress venture. The proceeds will go toward running the Florida Haunters site and forum and anything having to do with the group. Wish me luck! I've also listed my first tombstone on ebay to see how it goes over for selling those. I love creating them, but I only have so much room to display and store them all.
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6/02/08
The first ever Jax Zombie Walk was a success!! The event took place on May 2nd in the historic Five Points area of Jacksonville Florida. About 70 people showed up and we all had a great time. This was my and Brandon's first time as zombies - Brandon is a natural! We look forward to future Zombie Walks!! We managed to take some video (heavily edited because of a certain teenager who took the video kept getting shots of his feet):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_3pD_7BxYA
The Tombstone Workshop weekend, May 17 and 18, here at the Dead End was a fun time. I finally got to meet a fellow Jax haunter that I've known on the Halloween-L list for a few years now on Saturday and Sunday two of my fellow haunters came in from Middleburg and St Augustine. We had a good time, laughed a lot, and learned lots of new tricks. Thanks guys!!!
Thanks to the Tombstone workshop and Coda180, now I have a nifty new hot wire foam cutter that I put together and my tombstones will all be almost 3 inches thick and much better looking due to the use of pink and white foam together. Thanks again John!
Part of the Tombstone Workshop was learning new stuff and experimenting with things I've been wanting to try. This led to the new and improved tombstone how-to page, which will be launched as soon as I finish up those last little details on the batch of 'stones I made and get the new pictures taken and uploaded.
And now, we're just waiting for the Florida Haunters Beach Gathering in St Augustine on the 14th of this month for more fun with the best dang haunters around. :) Details can be found on the Florida Haunters forum, under the Make and Take section.
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Okay, I had a request for the crappy video on the PVC bending, so I went ahead and edited it the best that I could and threw it out on YouTube. Yeah, I know... it sucks... but hey, it's basic instructions. I started a webpage on it, but it's not much more than a title right now. I also started a video on painting with sand added to the paint for tombstones. I have to edit it still, my computer didn't want to upload it right so it will wait for now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47j95zGD-a0
I scheduled a Tombstone Workshop for my Florida Haunters here at my house for May 17th and 18th. I'll be cranking out some tombstones for my own haunt, and figured there may be some people that haven't tried using the insulating foam yet, or need some carving tips and painting tips, so I invited them all over. It's a 2-day thing since some can only come one day, others the other day. I will be out there all weekend anyway, so I've got the garage and yard open for both days. It's good chance to hang out too, so I am gonna cook some grub on the grill. All in all, looks to be a fun time with lots of tombstones going home with my friends. Details can be found on the Florida Haunters Forum, or if you're interested, just email me.
I also started a new project yesterday with some scrap foam I have leftover from other projects. I glued a bunch together and will be carving it into a pumpkin. Look for that in the projects page when it's done.
And last but not least - I'm going to my first ever Zombie Walk on Friday, May 2nd. I am SO excited about this. I've seen videos of other people in other cities around the country, and always thought it would be a fun experience. One of my friends, author Gary Williams,, on myspace sent me a link to another profile, thinking it would be right up my alley, and boy was he right!! The really cool thing is that one of the girls I went to school with is going to be there too. I haven't seen her for 20 years, so I am really looking forward to it. For more info on the Zombie Walk, please visit the official Jax Zombie Walk myspace page:
http://www.myspace.com/jaxzombiewalk
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Updated 4/16/08
I've been catching up on the forums I'm a member of, plus trying to tweak the Florida Haunters forum, and FINALLY got the Florida Haunters myspace page all pimped out and some friends added. I've added a new page to the Dead End here for recipes. Some of them are mine, some are from other people and websites. I'm trying to keep a growing list of useful stuff that would come in handy for other people for future parties and haunts.
I'm working on new content for the Tips N Tricks page as well. I took some video of PVC bending using sand and not using it to show the difference in how the bends look, but my kids thought it was "ham" time, so I had to scrap it. Hopefully next week I can get some decent video when the kids are not around. I'd do it tomorrow, but I've been elected to help out with one of Andy's events out at the flying field this weekend, and I need to spend some time out there tomorrow as well.
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Updated 4/07/08
I unveiled the new look for the Florida Haunters website and forum today, and I got some good response to the facelift. I've learned a great deal about working with frames, xml and photoshop on this project. It was a pretty big undertaking to start all over with most of it, but it was worth it I think. Everything's a bit more organized and easier on the eyes, plus it's color-coordinated. ;-)
I've been sick with the flu, so I haven't been working on much else lately.
Now I'll be working on this website, incorporating frames and stuff to make it all cool looking and what not - so please bear with me on the construction here. Once I'm done with that, I'll probably work on my husband's RC club website, and finally, I'll start building props, so check back often. Also, please , check out the Garage of Evil, so Steve will stop being mean to me because I haven't sent them enough new people. PLEASE!!
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Updated 3/19/08
I was asked a few weeks ago if I would take over the Florida Haunters Forum and website by my fellow haunter and friend, Oct31man, so I did. I'm working on updating the site as well as making some cosmetic changes to the forum since I have the time to do it right now. I took the opportunity while my mom was in town to head out to the beach, and I took one of my Bucky skeletons with us. We got some decent shots of him, as well as plenty of strange looks and lots of questions from other beach-goers. Today, I worked on a new image for the website using one of those images and learning Photoshop as I went. Here's one of the images I came up with:
Also, my good buddies Steve-O and Geoff have been working on the Garage of evil site some, and they have added a great new tutorial thanks to Steve's being chained to the pipes in the Garage until he finished it. Geoff also added a chat room to the site so we can all goof off in real time instead of trying to email back and forth on those drunken social evenings (or when they are bored at work).
Please , check out the Garage of Evil, so Steve will stop being mean to me because I haven't sent them enough new people. PLEASE!!
I'll start working on my own website and building props soon, so check back often.
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2/06/08
We had a great time at the Florida Haunters Make and Take on February 2nd. Thanks again to everyone that came out and to our wonderful host Robert for making it happen.
We met a couple of new members, and learned about some pretty neat stuff. Mazz brought his wall panels for a demo of how they work and now I am SO wanting to make some and have an actual walk-through this year. Vlad brought his bleeding tombstone, which is TOTALLY killer. I may have to make one of those as well. It was just great. Oct31man, Robert, had his 4-bar pneumatic mechanism set up which is ultra-quiet now and really smooth. Maureen brought her tree on wheels, which is pretty darn ingenious and looks really great! Noahbody brought his latex enhanced wig head to show how latex can be used to give life to a face and for corpsing. It looked awesome! IshWitch brought her famous tomato cage monster recipe for our newest member, Pmpknptch, and showed her how to make a great new addition to the prop family! And Pmknptch brought some really cool re-vamped candelabras that she turned from Christmas to Gothic! Brandon and I brought Eddie the corpse, The Wailing Tree and Richard the skull to show some of the stuff that can be done with simple materials.
We also got some rocks started! It was a good time, and I managed to keep from standing up in front of everyone doing my demo, and kind of walked around and did it sort of one-on-one instead. It worked out better for me since I am extremely nervous being in front of people. I had a blast being there with everyone, and am really looking forward to the next gathering.
We have some pictures that Brandon and I took on the 'bucket:
And some more from Noahbody on the Florida Haunters Forum:
http://floridahaunters.com/forum/YaBB.pl?num=1198147802/75
1/17/08
It's time for another Florida Haunters Make and Take!!
We're getting together again in Land O' Lakes at the Lodge, courtesy of Robert (Oct31man), for another fun Make and Take on Feb 2nd at 11 AM.
Here is where the Make & Take will be held:
We've decided on at least one project for this Make & Take, led by yours truly:
Paper Mache Rocks!
Here's the project page from this year's rocks for those of you who haven't seen it or want to know the basics of how they'll be made: http://www.howloweenqueen.com/rocks.htm
For our Florida Haunters who are interested in attending,
please email me and let me know or to get more info, please visit the
Hope to see y'all there!
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