[Haunt On A Dime]

Now that Halloween has come and passed, we must look toward the future. I know you don't want to, but we must clean up... storage of your haunt is important.

First thing I would suggest, is to invest in nice orange storage bins. Why orange you ask? Because that way you will know what boxes hold Halloween decorations as apposed to your President's Day decorations (which should obviously be bins marked with the presidential seal-not to be confused with the Red White & Blue bins which hold your Fourth of July decore).

Any-Who: get your storage bins and organize your props in them. Be sure to label them with their contents, as there is nothing more annoying than having to try to figure out where you put that one severed foot with the ingrown toenail. Try to organize them with like items (i.e. Skulls, bones and hands in one and electronics in another)

Once your props are stowed, hopefully your skellies and zombies are foldable, you can fold them up and hang them on hooks above your bins.

Next are your stones. Stop buy your nearest dollar store and get yourself a laundry or garment bag, these are great for holding multipule foam stones and can be hung out of the way (the netted laundry bags also allow for you to see the contents at a glance without having to unhook or unzip the bag).

As every haunt is unique, so is its storage. I hope this has helped to give you some ideas to getting organized for the coming 11 months of flightless nights.

 

[Haunt On A Dime]

Good tips...I picked up some orange storage bins last week from Target, but they're a little on the small side. I also wish I had an easier way to store those bulky, resin tombstones.

You might try plastic garment bags for the larger tombstones. I found some at Dollar Tree which were something like 24"x64" they come in different sizes. I'm sure Target has a large assortment of them.

 

[Haunt On A Dime]

Another tip: fog chillers make great off-season storage for fog machines.
Make certain the chiller's interior is dried well, tape cellophane over the ports ( to keep bugs anld spiders out), and place your fog machine inside the chiller (disconnect ducting if needed, and store inside the chiller as well). Secure lid and your fogger and chiller will be together next time you look for them.

Great addition Joe. I don't have a chiller myself-I built one last year but my fogger is one of the crappy ones so it didn't work too well. Great point for the "chillers" out there.

 

[Haunt On A Dime]

Since we're on the topic of storage, how do you guys store your blow mold jack o' lanterns? I threw all of mine into plastic storage totes. Should I have put any sort of paper in between them so that the JOLs don't come into direct contact with each other? Since this is all being stored in my garage in south Texas, I was wondering if there was any chance of the pumpkins sticking together after a hot summer and messing up the paint.

I store my pumpkins the same, in storage bins. I fill in the extra spaces with skulls and bones, whatever fits really. I live in Miami and I didn't have any probables with them sticking together. I think as long as they aren't kept in direct sunlight they should be fine.