SETTING UP

All we've got left to do is stretch some spider webs. It'll all look great at tonight when it's lit up.

TRICK-OR-TREAT

LAST OF THE PROPS

I finally finished everything up this evening. The scythe blade is made out of 1/4" plywood and the handle is made from a large wooden dowel rod. It's actually a rod you'd use in a closet to hang clothes. It's been cut at angles and glued and screwed back together. I tied twine around the handle where you hold it and then tied on some bones (made from sculpy).

My husbands been working on light up crows. We bought a bunch of crows at Michaels, poked their eyes out, cut open the belly and added red LED lights. This only works if the bird is hollow. That way you can tuck all the wiring and battery inside the body. You can see below what that looks like. I wanted to show how to do all the wiring but just didn't have time to document it. We've got five light up crows and three non light up crows that will be perched on the scarecrow.

GRIM REAPER

I just finished two grim reaper cloaks this evening. I used Simplicity pattern 9887. Very easy pattern. I would have loved to have made them out of wool or a distressed velvet but each one is a little over nine yards of material. Not only would that have been really expensive, it also would have been really heavy and hard to manage while sewing. I already felt like I was wrestling with just nine yards of cotton. I've got one more prop to finish. My husband was nice enough to make me a scythe out of some scrap lumber while I finished up the cloaks. All I need to do is finish painting it. I've got just 3 more days to finish everything up. Cutting it a little close this year!

GRAVE SLAB / COFFIN

Two years ago I made a bunch of headstones out of insulation foam. This year I decided to make a grave slab which turned out to tall and is now a coffin. Anyway I used pretty much the same technique with this as I did the headstones. Only difference is the headstones did not need a wood frame.

Here you can see the wood frame made out of 1x2's. Each side can be taken apart to store flat.

Then I covered the wood frame with the foam. Wood glue and a few pressure clamps is all that is needed. I could have used Liquid Nails but didn't have any. Then the fun part. I used a hot knife, looks like an exacto knife you plug in, and start to add the detailing. This knife can be found at any hardware store. I advise cutting this foam with this knife outdoors. The fumes are horrible so wear a mask. The top is not attached at all. If I want it can slide to the side to look partially opened.

I also used white caulk to fill in any and smooth out any gaps I had. this also helps hold it all together as well as the glue. Caulk also works well for adding texture.

Then I primed it with a grey primer.

Once the primer was dry I just painted it to look old. It doesn't need to look perfect. There's a lot of splattering and dripping of paint to get the look I wanted. I also ragged on some paint.

And I'm done. Any imperfections in it won't be noticeable in the dark so I'm not going to worry about them.