Thread: cave ideas...

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ok so I have the 'cave' room we made last yr (link to pics below) it was A LOT of work and I'd really like to re-use it this yr but I dont want to do the pirate hideout theme again. What other themes can ya do with a cave, any ideas??

piratecavehideout

Newbie Haunter.....I did a witches candy cave this last season.......it did not really turn out the way I wanted but we were running out of time so I had to pull it together quickly. It was in my living room and I covered everything with those big rolls of plastic from walmart. I made a small hole for the kids to peek into the cave and there was so much to see in there. We decorated from the ceiling down with the main Collins witch and then ghosts hanging from the ceilings w/ blacklights. We used Ghostess beef netting to make spider webs all over.

There was a Wizard figure and several other little props and also some skeletons hanging from the ceiling. I had small witches cauldrons stuffed with styrofoam ( Witch from Canada's design) and they were filled with suckers. The kids liked it well enough that its a design I will work on more & put somewhere else in my haunt (this year living rm. will be a funeral parlor).

I think a cave idea is very versatile, theres just so many things you can do with it. Your Paper gives it a nice look. Be interesting to see what the other members have to offer.......lot of brillant ideas in this forum!!

the Muffster

Thanks Muffy, good ideas and kid friendly too which is what I need.

You can place blinking LED "critter eyes" in various places in the cave. The POTC ride at Disney uses these in a couple of locations. The effect is easy and cheap to build.

spiders.

For inspiration:
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Harry Potter (forget which one with the spider)
Lord of the Rings (last one with the spider)


One of the (numberous) pod people/body snatcher movies had em in caves, with the little spiderweb thingies coming out of the pods...but that's probably a bit of a stretch for a reference with kids these days.

Newbie Haunter.....heres the link from A Witch from Canada:

Witch1971 - Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

Thats where I got the idea to do the Witches Candy Cave

when you open that photobucket page....look at the roaster on the left and click on Halloween 2005 .....you will find the pictures in there. She has a small candy scene......I had much more room to do mine...but she had incorporated some great ideas.

To find my pictures click on the banner below, enter the web site........go to "Velcome to My Home" , then click on the 2007 pictures, on the next pg. the witches candy cave is the last link.

Muf

Year before last we did a haunted mine shaft. We live in Colorado so it was a good theme. I embedded "dynamite sticks" in the cave walls and some bones. At the "end" of the mine shaft we had a fcg. It turned out pretty cool.

Spiders is a great idea. I have a pic of a web and spider that we made last year for our Harry Potter theme...sorry I don't have a tutorial, but basically it was two black trash bags stuffed with newspaper for the head and body, I covered it with fabric from Wallyworld that had a texture almost like fur, the eyes were a styrofoam ball cut in half and painted with red glitter glue, and the legs were pipe insulating foam with some wire in the middle so that we could bend them and they would hold the shape. Really easy. The web was purchased at Micheal's for $6, and my hubby hung the web and spider (seperately) with fishing line (strong and invisible). It turned out great and was really big, the kids loved it. We had what seemed like a gazillion little plastic spiders of all shapes and sizes spread all over, and spider egg sacs hanging from the ceiling, to finish off "Aragog's Lair". (Who first appeared in HP and the Chamber of Secrets)





The egg sacs were easy too, knee-high white stockings with egg shaped styrofoam balls covered in batting stuck inside them, with little bitty spiders in between the stocking and batting, and a little larger spiders on the outside, hung from the ceiling with...you guessed it, fishing line! I bought the stockings at Wallyworld, too, for like 59 cents a pair.

And to finish it off, we hung thread from the ceiling so that when you walked down the hall into the room, you felt them brush your face, like spider webs!

I've seen some people do pretty creative stuff in a cave setting using Aliens (from the movie) as a theme. Lot's of good info on how to build an Alien monster with egg sacs and face-huggers.

Might be fun if you don't mind straying into sci-fi territory a bit. Here's a decent place to start: Alien Page

Great spider lair, MHooch, the egg sacs are a great addition.
When doing a cave theme, can't forget about bats!hang bats areound, and have sound effects of alot of bats wings flapping, and squeeking. That can be a addion to what ever other theme you use, witchs, spiders, etc.
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