Halloween buildy fun!

Spent this morning picking up more bits and pieces for our Halloween set up. Got all the PVC bits to make a pair of cool bubbly tower thingies for the mad scientist/witchy lab place we're adding this year. I've got a book I'm going to alter into a spell book for the table as well as some jars we're going to fill with specimens and delightfully disgusting ingredients. There'll be scrolls and such as well added to the mix. I'm trying to decide between a crystal ball or a bubbly, foggy cauldron though I may say to hell with it and use both! I've just got to find a cost effective crystal ball that won't shatter during storage. And eyeballs. I really need to make a bunch of eyeballs.

I already have one specimen in a jar and he looks very nice. I'm using a "grow in water" octopus in a medium sized jar. His tentacles have curled inward and he looks quite unusual. If we decide to tint the water, he should look most disturbing. I have some small, plastic skull faces I'll use for the 'wax seal' on the scrolls and have been offered the use of a rather rickety bookcase to house them all in. If we can get a black light that will blend well, we'll use either some laundry detergent or highlighter ink to make glowy potions. Yes, liquid laundry detergent glows under black light as long as it contains phosphorous (which most do). If we have time, we also want to add a super creepy dangling crank spider though we'll probably paint him to look like a black widow. Watch the video...he's scary! I'm contemplating a "Don't Feed the Monster" sign for our monster box that was such a hit last year but I'm afraid it may ruin the scariness. It was the simplest prop we had...a wooden treasure chest containing a strobe light that made monster sounds and the ball from a wacky weasel ball. We propped the top open just slightly, laid a chain over it to look like it was holding something in, and turned everything on. It scared more folks than anything else we had. lol

We're moving our cemetery to the side of the house and hopefully will have better lighting this year. I'd like to add a grave grabber or a mausoleum front but we'll have to see if there's time. Either way, I'm actually excited about Halloween this year. I couldn't get into it last year so our set up was...well, less than stellar is putting it mildly. This year, I hope we really terrorize some kiddies! *cackles evilly*