Thread: That one prop...

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Have you ever spent so much time on a certain prop, and then looking back over all the pictures you realize it didn't even make it into one picture the day of, and the only pictures it got into were from cleanup?

I was looking through out 2008 pictures last night and realized that something was missing.. All of our Tissue Paper Mushrooms (we made 20 of them - each one taking about 10 hours). We did wire and paper mache with little tissue squares on these STUPID mushrooms that we spent a LOT of time doing. I'd say we spent about 3 weeks of our year on these dumb little mushrooms...There were 3 of us doing them every night, and we even recruited help from one person's siblings and the ONLY pics I have of them.. the cleanup pics from AFTER the party the next day.

Now, we used to throw a pretty good party, and in 08 there were about 75 people... of those people not a SINGLE picture of these mushrooms were taken. They were all about 18inches high and were staggered around the yard. I have pictures of EVERY other prop, and in some cases MANY pictures of props...

Has anyone ever had one of these props? one that you wish you hadn't wasted your time doing because it really didn't add to your haunt/party?

I've yet to build a prop that was a waste of time. I enjoy all of the props i make because i know its not sonething everyone does and that its not likely that it will be seen at any other house by the ToTs. However, I have spent a large amount of time on Tombstones and people rarely pay attention to them because of my Corpsed skeletons. So in a way i consider that to be a waste of time. I mean to spend so much time on detail for one tombstone and not many people even notice it. It can be a bit discouraging.

The props we did ended up in a dumpster after the party... they weren't really useful for standard halloween decor, and were theme specific... something we'd never use again. There was a little pile of these dumb things in the yard the next day... I wish there had been a reason to save them and use them again, but honestly some were pink and purple, some were green and blue, some were red and silver... they definitely looked like something out of wonderland, but were so inconspicuous no one even bothered to photograph them! Not even us! My FAKE pumpkin garden got more play than these things... Heck, my momerath arrow got about 20 pics taken, and it took me literally about 3 hours to make it....

When your working with other people, how do you tell those people that the props you are working on are stupid and a waste of time without offending them? They ARE helping out anyways... but how do you nix a project when your part of a team - especially when the other 2 people on your team are insistant upon doing a project you know is lame? I am no longer friends with those people, but for future reference...

That's a tough one... Sometimes you have to bite the bullet the first time and just go with it. After that just be honest. It kind of goes back to the old saying... Honesty is the best policy. If your not into it, just say so. If your not honest you either end up being "the jerk" or getting sucked into something you aren't interested in.

Originally Posted by Mandathewitch

The props we did ended up in a dumpster after the party... they weren't really useful for standard halloween decor, and were theme specific... something we'd never use again. There was a little pile of these dumb things in the yard the next day... I wish there had been a reason to save them and use them again, but honestly some were pink and purple, some were green and blue, some were red and silver... they definitely looked like something out of wonderland, but were so inconspicuous no one even bothered to photograph them! Not even us! My FAKE pumpkin garden got more play than these things... Heck, my momerath arrow got about 20 pics taken, and it took me literally about 3 hours to make it....

When your working with other people, how do you tell those people that the props you are working on are stupid and a waste of time without offending them? They ARE helping out anyways... but how do you nix a project when your part of a team - especially when the other 2 people on your team are insistant upon doing a project you know is lame? I am no longer friends with those people, but for future reference...

I know what you mean... for me its all about "my" vision. I have a hard time letting people help me with things because i see things how I want them to look and if I dont feel its up to par, i have a hard time not wanting to take over the project. While im no profesional i have to have my party theme and props up to par with what I feel is my best and even then most the time i dont feel it is good enough ..lol

I share your pain Hyprosick. I am very fussy over how my props look. It either has to be awesome or its complete crap.

Agreed, it's all about the look. It has to look good or I start all over again or keep working on it until I get it right.

I'm the same way.

Although sometimes you have to step away & say "ENOUGH!" because sometimes you can make it too...I dunno....just too much. Just one more wart or bit of red paint or bone or whatever & it's lost. Usually the hubby will step in w/an opinion & that helps.

But so far, I haven't made something I thought wasn't worth the time. Even if no one bothered to look at it, I know it's there & I'm happy w/it regardless of what others think.

It's why I bothered to fix up the beat up coffin I got for free. No one would know whether or not the bottom was painted but I know.

I know what you guys mean. I'll have people tell me over and over again that they love my props when I show the the pictures. But sometimes I look at it and go, "It needs more distressing" or "It needs more detail." And no one else understands why. But once you show them the more detailed and revamped projects, they love them even more.

I guarantee you, the second you take those little details away, people will notice. It's not something that people pay attention to consciously, but we expect to see little details in everything. It's one of those things that you don't notice it's there when it is, but you sure notice when it's gone. And people are just a little less impressed with the setup, even if they don't know why.

So don't stop with the details, because even if no one says anything about them, it doesn't mean they won't notice when they're gone.

Keep Chuggin'!
LKSmart