Thread: Path Marker Ideas

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I do a yard walkthrough. It's a very basic path that I can control really easily if the kids choose to go through the haunt. However, the ones who just want candy and then change their minds later tried like hell to kill themselves in my yard last year.

This is last year:



And the year before shows it a little clearer when I'm not wrapping the stuff around a large prop:



Those were thick 3 foot high dowels (4 foot before I pounded them into the ground) covered strung with those holographic plastic garlands of bats, pumpkins, and ghosts. It works fine in the haunt but does not offer enough of a visual cue if they try to enter mid-walkthrough from the concrete path on the left.



What do other people use as path markers? Have you made your own that are cheap and easy to produce? I love the metal and plastic yard stakes they have at Michaels but I am not spending $1.20 each with the 40% off coupons and going back for the next three weeks to get enough for the yard. I'm looking for budget ideas here.

I was thinking of making some with white foam. I'd carve them down to a Halloween-related shape, weather proof and paint them as I normally do with foam props, and then bore a hole through the bottom using a wire cutter. That way, I could slip them onto the dowels I already have as a bigger visual cue for the ToTs. I'm just worried that the first "Oh wait, that's really cool, Mommy, I'm going to try running into the fog machine now" kid will snap one right off the top.

Your idea sounds really cute, but if you're looking to save time and give a visual cue, how about luminaries? Nothing less expensive than a pack of paper bags, a stamp or black marker and some thin glow sticks from Dollar Tree. Visible in daytime and nighttime

Time I have. I only have to make two moving props (super basic stuff), some signs, two people (which are being done up with clothed skeletons and papier-mache heads), fallen branches to secure to the ground, a box, whatever strange little monsters I can put together, some sound mixing/scoring, and a trellis with a metallic curtain on it. Everything else is being reused from previous haunts with some new paint and altered context.

The luminaries could work along the actual walkway. Thanks.

Here is a link to my witch's brooms that we made last year. I used them to line the sidewalk. They are pretty simple to make. I stole the idea from HGTV.

Sorry. Forgot to add the link.

Witch Brooms

I love Craft Lab. I could work with that idea. I'd rather not kill my hands when I still have sculpting to do, but I like the idea of wrapping the stakes on the walkway with lights.

Scratch that. I need path markers for how I have to do the layout of the yard. Here's the first test.



The hard candy and chocolate bar need to be a little smaller to be made with the tombstone remains from my sandwiching methods. I also need to get some thinner dowels. I actually blew out the back of the chocolate bar boring a large enough hole to to fit the dowels I used last year. The next size down will be perfect.

I used those inexpensive solar path lights (I think you can even get them at the Dollar Store). Remove the bottom pipe from them (light press fit) and then push them into a 1/2-inch PVC cross fitting. The opposite end of the cross fitting slides onto a PVC pipe of whatever length you desire for your stanchion (using 30 inches gives you four per 10-foot pipe as sold). The pipe and fitting get spray painted flat black (<$1 at Home Depot) I drilled holes on the other two extensions of the cross fitting to slip a cut link of a plastic chain. Plastic chain (I think I got mine through mrchain.com) then goes from one light to the next defining your path. The PVC pipe bases for each light slip over 1/2-inch rebar (buy these pre-cut) stakes driven into the ground. This provides low light to define the path without blowing the ambiance, and discourages the temptation to wander from the defined path. These lights typically use a cold white LED light, which also isn't bad for ambiance itself. The link shows a section of this at our haunt. I believe I spaced the stanchions about 8 feet apart. It kept kids from going where I didn't want them to be for their safety and my sanity.

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