Thread: 2012: The year of... Halloween.

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Every year it happens. In the late summer I make a detailed Halloween to-do list, plan everything out meticulously for the party and yard haunt, start out strong... and run out of time. Never again! For 2012, I’m making it my New Year’s resolution to work on something Halloween related every single day. Prior to joining this forum I would have thought it was crazy to start building tombstones in January – now I know it’s perfectly acceptable. Heck, I might even be behind schedule compared to those of you who started November 1st! Feel free to join in with a similar pledge and share your daily checklist, and maybe, just maybe, come October there will be less of us in a “holy crap” situation.

January 1st: I took some time to write out a giant wish list of everything I’d love to accomplish by October 31st. It includes everything from building large-scale props to finding the perfect party invitation font. Highlights include:

-build a laser vortex (my first electrical prop!)
-complete the sign for our cemetery
-build a few life-sized figures for our Nightmare Before Christmas-themed party
-redo the entire menu for the party, which will also be combined with my 30th birthday

Happy New Year everybody!

Ohhhhhh to be 30 again... Vortex sounds great. I've got it on my list too. That and 3 or 3 Plasma balls. I'm going to rebuild my tombstones because apparently MINE SUCK... Thanks everyone who has posted photos of such awesome stones I feel very inferior now.LOL. Finish my Toxic waste/bio-hazard spill, complete my Bone Throne, Build my Entry Way, make my fence for my cemetary, get my Bio-hazard bags to hand out candy in... the list goes on and on and on.... Sounds like you have the right idea though HS.

Happy Haunted New Year.

Happy New Years!
I didn't think I would ever be thinking about 10/31 this early either but I just sent a PM to another member to ask if there "for sale" is still available. Spiders in January and plans starting to expand our spider scene already.

We are also discussing plans to increase storage which of course means more stuff - Yay!

It's never too early to start working on next year. I've been working my way through microcontoller prototyping for my future animatronics. Might as well do something during the cold winter months. I also need to start working on my front door overhead Jack-O-Lantern Sentinnel. It's been in my head for months but I need to get started or it will never be done in time. I also got an airbrush for Christmas so I have to learn now to use it properly.

On New Year's Eve a friend gave me a plasma ball skull and heart she picked up in a college bookstore. It was funny putting away all of the Christmas decorations today and packing away some new Halloween props at the same time. I've got everyone I know thinking about Halloween all of the time now. It must be contagious.

Happy New Year!

Every year it happens. In the late summer I make a detailed Halloween to-do list, plan everything out meticulously for the party and yard haunt, start out strong... and run out of time.

This is me. I'm a terrible procrastinator. This past Halloween, I had so much to do the last 3 days of October that by ToT time, I was totally exhausted, and also frustrated that I didn't have time to do last-minute detail stuff. Last January I told myself I was going to do a lot of projects, but when it came time to start doing something, I found one reason or another to postpone it, always reasoning that "there's plenty of time 'til Halloween". In early September, I finally got started on my cauldron creep, but got an infection in my leg and had to spend a week in the hospital. I was lucky to have it up and running by Halloween, but I didn't even have time to hook up the fog machine to the cauldron.

This year I resolved to quit procrastinating. Every weekend, I'm doing something towards Halloween 2012. Here are the projects I'm undertaking this year:

>Upgrade my giant spider-add definition to the abdomen and legs.
>Upgrade my cauldron creep-add a motor for additional head movement, hook up the fogger and sound to the cauldron.
>Build my remote-controlled scarecrow-this will be a good project for wintertime.
>Build a fog chiller.

There are other projects I want to do, but I'm going to focus on these projects first. If I can wrap these up by August, I may start a new project.

Great thread! I started my planning too!

Planning list so far:

Monster mud Reaper w/ lantern
Pumpkin patch w/ scarecrow
Cauldron creep
PVC candles (almost done)
Pink foam tombstones
Led flicker witch jars
FCG
Pink foam boarded-up windows

~Bobby

As a new Haunter I have a ways to go

Finish backstory
Website
Cemetary Fence (nearly done)
Sign
Tombstones
Laboratory set up (fortunately I teach chemistry so I already have lots of good stuff I just need to set it up to bubble etc)
spot Lights
other lights
Sound system
buy some skeletons

Originally Posted by Pumpkinhead625

This past Halloween, I had so much to do the last 3 days of October that by ToT time, I was totally exhausted, and also frustrated that I didn't have time to do last-minute detail stuff.

I heard this over and over from several members last year. It's a shame, especially after the money and time we all put into getting ready. I'm glad to see others who have vowed to stop procrastinating!

January 2nd: I tested the new Halloween Cricut cartridge I received for Christmas (for those who may not know, the Cricut is an amazing electronic cutter primarily designed for scrapbooking - I use it for just about everything else). Lots of great items, especially the banner design which I will use for the birthday party and the bat outline. I now have two different bat patterns, and I plan on cutting hundreds of them over the year to hang from the ceiling in the entryway.

I scored a big bag of unused fishing netting today. I decided a good way to add to my haunt without having more space available would be to drape creepy netting from the ceiling and have body parts and skeletons stuffed in it or dangling from it. Pretty pedestrian stuff, I know, but I'm looking forward to using the idea to add detail.

Other than that I know I want to work on making some hanging body bags or bags of bones. I am going to take some of my Dollar Tree skulls and corpse them since I ended up not using them last year. I turn the back of the garage into a cemetery, and I want to accumulate all the stuff I need to simulate a good forest this year.

I know that my haunt will be much darker this year so I wish I had gotten my butt in gear and snapped some more strobe lights up during after-Halloween sales.

One thing's for sure, I'm thinking about it way earlier than usual, so maybe I'll actually get started setting up earlier this year too!

Originally Posted by Zombiesmash

I decided a good way to add to my haunt without having more space available would be to drape creepy netting from the ceiling and have body parts and skeletons stuffed in it or dangling from it.

This is a fantastic idea! Not "pedestrian" at all, since a great haunt will pay attention to such details and have something coming at you from all sides. I get especially creeped out when scary props are above me, like they could fall down at any moment. Much scarier than something you can maneuver around.

January 3rd: I finally sent requests to all the friends/neighbors who took a substantial amount of pictures at the party and asked them for copies. Each year during the party I have a digital picture frame going that shows photos from the previous parties, and everyone really gets a kick out of seeing old costumes. Going through my pictures today I realized that I'm missing shots of quite a few guests, so hopefully I'll get a more complete album and get the photo frame all ready for this year soon.