Thread: Help with Creepy Mother Goose Theme

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My yard display this year is a creepy Mother Goose nursery rhyme theme. I thought this would be so easy, but its turning into a nightmare! The props are all static--unless I figure out how to make something move...plus I'm running out of $$ for this. Here's the scenario:

This will be Grim Goose Manor. I will redo my cemetery colums with a plaque that says that and some other deco, and my toppers will be those big plastic yard geese, painted, and with a flaming cauldron inside. Maybe LED eyes.

The cemetery-type area: Grim Reaper will be holding or standing next to a tombstone-type sign with a very, very creepy Mother Goose rhyme on it. Mary, Mary Quite Contrary will be in her garden which will be filled with skull head daisies and some other stuff; I have made a giant rotting looking pumpkin shell for Peter, Peter Pumpkin eater which will have a decaying-blucky inside, etc. I may put some plain wood crosses here and there.

On the other side of the yard will be kind of Victorian-ish room scenes depicting the rhymes: Little Miss Muffet, Rub-A-Dub Dub, Good night sleep tight don't let the bedbugs bite; Goosey, Goosey Gander, and some others.

What I'm working on now, and my dilemma at this point is with Rub-A-Dub Dub: I have made a papier mache and chicken wire bathtub, to look like a claw foot tub. Well, the tub is kind of lumpy but its obviously a bathtub, and some gargoyles are the claw feet. Inside will be three skellys and a bubble machine. Tub has no bottom and obviously can't hold water. Since people don't know all the words to these rhymes I have to incorporate the complete rhymes into the scenes. So other than just a sign with the rhyme on it, I want something more creative and I'm having brain freeze. [Rub-A-Dub Dub, Three men in a tub, And who do you think they be?] These are the words I want to put on something creative. The rest of the rhyme I was going to put bath towels over the rim that say: The Butcher; The Baker; The Candlestick Maker; and the last line of rhyme would be on a bath rug on the ground.

If you have any ideas for this scene or for some other MG rhymes, I'm all ears. I have also compiled a soundtrack cd which goes pretty well, and I want to do something with creepy dolls on my front porch. I have some black and white checkered material (like a Jester costume would be made of) 14 yards, which glows under black light that I wanted to use like a scene setter roll in my front porch area with the creepy dolls. That's as far as I got with that idea other than collecting dolls and a child's carriage.

I want more of a creepy, eerie feel, but I'm afraid its going to be cute, funny. But I do like some dark humor incorporated.

Sound like a great idea have any pictures?

I like it.
So you are basically looking for some ideas for creative things to write the rhyme on that goes with the scene, right?

have you thought of putting a shower curtain ring up on a pole, the old-style for claw foot tubs and hand a clear shower curtain with bloody hand prints and the start of the rhyme?

sounds like a great idea!

We did a "freaky fairytale" one year and had a BLAST with it. Go nuts...if you run out of time and ideas, a fun one is to get a white sheet, put it over some balled up newspaper, throw some blood on it, then make a large toe-tag out of cardboard and put a recognizable name on it. We did "Goldilocks" because we were doing fairy tales, but you could do "Little boy blue" or "Simple Simon" or something. It gives something extra that's creepy without a lot of extra money.

Sheepies666, I like your shower curtain idea.

Dark Star: Yes, that whole long post was basically asking what creative things to put the rhymes on, but also for any other ideas along this theme you fellow haunters may have that haven't occurred to me, or if you've done this or similar theme in the past, what things did you do.

How about something with Little Bo Peep........the full rhyme has has:
"It happened one day, as Bo Peep did stray
Unto a meadow hard by --
There she espied their tails, side by side,
All hung on a tree to dry."

Do you have a tree to hang a bunch of sheep tails?

Three Blind Mice - have three big mice with canes and somewhere nearby have a knife laying with the mices tails.

Ring Around the Roses is also Mother Goose....you could have a ring of charred skellies dancing around a fire

Humpty Dumpty - Have the bottom half of Humpty still sitting up on the wall and break the rest of him up on the ground below

I'll keep thinking...

For the skellies in the tub, you don't really need the towels with the names on them. Some cheap props could be used to show who they are...a meat cleaver and bloody apron, a chef's hat and a clean white apron, or a bowl and big wooden spoon could be used for the butcher and baker. You could use some LED tea lights and some pvc pipe to make some faux candles that your "candlestick maker is holding...these would also add some flickering lights too... In fact you could make several candles and have them stuck on the edge of your tub for additional creepy lighting.

I think incorporating these and the bloody shower curtain idea would be very cool. You would probably only need to write Rub a Dub Dub in blood on the curtain and folks would know exactly what you were showing.

You should do a search in the party section of the forum Last year, one of the member did a whole them about that. Explained his ideas and even posted pics. If I remember correctly it was DeadTed.
Anyway, his turned out pretty cool.

MsM

Originally Posted by MsMeeple

You should do a search in the party section of the forum Last year, one of the member did a whole them about that. Explained his ideas and even posted pics. If I remember correctly it was DeadTed.
Anyway, his turned out pretty cool.

MsM

wOOt! Thanks MsMeeple!

Fairy tale party/prop pictures

Ransom/Fairy Tale Invitations

Invitation Help - Fairy Tale Theme

Complete theme change!

Yes... 4 threads for the same thing. I have since become the campaign manager for the One Subject, One Thread campaign.

DeadTed, your props are great. I really like the ice chests and the tree with the fairy trap.

Can't really use that with the nursery rhymes I'm doing. Now I kind of wish I was having a party so I could do outside with nursery rhymes and inside with fairy tale and then call it "Grimm-Goose Manor"!

Well, today I used a small futon to make into a twin-size bed propped up on some stools. It has a hand-made quilt and pillow sham (thrift shop-has some holes and wear so I don't feel bad about using it!) Also a little girl's pink topped mosquito canopy, and also a throw blanket with some geese on it. There will be a goose of some sort in all the scenes. I will have a Donna the Dead Glow Up in the bed with a lot of spiders. Maybe I'll use Cylonfrogqueen's spider pods in the canopy--I just ran across that tutorial last night and it fits right in. So this is for Good Night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite. There's another verse to it but not sure if I'll use it.

Anybody have any ideas on how to make a giant meat grinder? Doesn't have to move. I want to have a guy in the "hopper" supposedly getting ground up and then some guts and stuff look like its coming out of the part where the meat would come out. I was thinking making some guts from great stuff and I could put a small pump there to pump some blood. This is for Fee Fie Fo Fum, I smell the blood of an englishman. Be he live or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread. I realize ground bones wouldn't be guts but I thought they'd be cooler.