[pumpkinman]

Hey all,

In May my wife and I had an addition to our family. A little boy, our first child... we are calling him our "little Pumpkin" I cant wait for trick or treating and to dress him in a little costume... Then in the upcoming years carving pumpkins and having him help set stuff up with me for my home display.

That being said... my wife is taking some unpaid time off work that is going to stretch our budget out to the max the next few months.

I probably wont be buying much of anything new this year for Halloween. But that does not mean I cant get creative with what I have.

Can you post your best money effective yard/ haunt ideas?

 

[Warrant2000]

Congratulations on your little Haunter!

One of the first haunts I set up, I took our cube shaped plastic play set, turned it on it's side making a short tunnel the ToT's had to crawl through. I draped a black bed sheet from our porch overhang to the playset, covering the small porch from the outside.

I sat inside the house and had spiders on fishing line dangling right at the doorway, where they got their candy. I got some pretty good scares when I dropped a spider into their open candy bags! I also had a cheap sound effects tape in the stereo. Believe it or not, I had the biggest setup in my neighborhood that year!

 

[The Pod]

Congratulations on your new family addition!

Can you post your best money effective yard/ haunt ideas?

I followed the tutorial instructions from the Halloween Prop Builders Group - Project #4 here on the forum and built this last week using old packing crates my company was throwing out. I even used a nail puller and pulled, straighten and reused the nails! Total cost for the project was $0.00!

 

[Terra]

Congratulations on your little pumpkin

You can spook up your yard for the cheap by hanging strips of shredded garbage bags, burlap strips and tufts of raffia. I also hang this off of my outside lights:

 

[Spookilicious mama]

Dont forget the cheap strobe light and a cheap sound effects CD. Oh and of course a few bags of spider web go a long way. Oh one more thing. Make sure you take that little pumpkin of yours to a pumpkin patch near by and put him smack dab in the middle of all the pumpkins. It makes a great pic and you can do it each year. Congrats on your little boy, BOYS ROCK!! Of course I have two boys of my own but still

 

[MHooch]

Congratulations, pumpkinman, Mrs. pumpkinman AND to the little pumpkin!!!

That's great, you guys must be so happy...and sleep deprived. LOL!

My favorite cheap Halloween trick is to make a scarecrow out of old clothes (free) and stuff it with newspapers (free) and place it on the porch or lawn maybe with a pumpkin or haybale display (oooh, that may be a bad idea, hay is expensive this year ) Anyway, let him sit there a few days to a week or so before TOT night. Then on TOT night YOU put on the clothes and sit out on the porch or wherever and when the TOTers go by, move or talk or jump up. It is ALWAYS hilarious and a huge hit with the kids. We wish we had video taped the year that my hubby did this, it was soooo funny.

 

[pumpkinman]

Thanks guys and gals... lots of good ideas so far

 

[TheEighthPlague]

If you have fishing line, hang dangling lengths of it from above where people will walk into them. This gives that just-walked-through-a-spiderweb feeling that really creeps people out. Add a dollar-store spider or two on the floor to really cement the idea.