Followers From All Over...

I often look at my blog stats to see how many hits it gets in a days time.  The most interesting thing to me, is that from what the stats page shows, people from all over the world have viewed my blog :)

To everyone out there, even if you've just taken a peek at my blog, thanks so much. :)

Don't be afraid just to drop me a "hello" and let me know where you're from :)  I'll get a kick out of actually hearing from you all :)

Happy Haunting,

The Countess :)

Scary Fruit

Check out the pic below and more on the artist's website Dimitri Tsykalov

Chilling Instrument

I absolutly love this combination:

More about it here

EGADS!

Dear Michael's,

I really appreciate your enthusiasm of holidays, going so far as to start stocking your shelves with beautiful Halloween goodies in the middle of JUNE, but this is creating a problem.

What you don't realize is that by the time that October gets here, all of the glorious orange and black merchandise will be gone and in it's place, red and green and snow ALL OVER.

We Halloween Enthusiasts would like to see Halloween merchandise, during the Halloween season. Not Christmas stuff.  This really puts a damper on OUR uncomplicated holiday's fun.

- The Countess

Yes, Michael's is all ready stocking their shelves.  I took this picture LAST WEEK.  Last year, they at least waited till JULY.  I have photo evidence to support this ;).  They are starting earlier and earlier every year.  And while seeing these beautiful pumpkins excites me, it makes me sad to, knowing that just as I stated in my mock letter, that by the time our beloved season rolls around, the stores will be FULL of Christmas stuff. 

Bummer =(

Skull Chair

Yet another piece of amazing furniture that I want :)

Image from:  antiq-furniture.livejournal.com

Reaper Wing Progress

After last weekend's foley after foley, it was a breath of fresh, Autumn air when things went right this weekend :)

The projector is AMAZING*:

I made a copy of my wing sketch and shrunk it down a bit, so that most of the image fit on the projection at one time.  Here, I'm projecting it onto some foam from my bedroom, to the hallway.  I had to put up a plastic table cloth, to block out some of the sunlight from the living room, which helped to really make the image easier to see.

*Now, I'm sure for the more experienced artists, who all ready know about this technique, this projector is small potatoes to what is out there, but for the price I really think that this thing is decent.  It projects color pictures in color... which is exciting.... that in itself opened up the avenue to some other great projects that I've been wanting to tackle.  I'll share those soon enough ;) In anycase, for the home haunt project builder, I feel like this thing is fully sufficient.  The image of what you want projected needs to be shrunk down to 3.5 x 3.5, but that's nothing that a computer/scanner or a copy machine can't do!

Back to the wings!

Then I just moved the projector closer to the foam, till the wings were about the size that I thought I would need them.  Next, I whipped out the measuring tape.  I'm doing the wings in at least 3 layers as of now, so I traced layer 1 and layer two out on the 1/2 sheet of foam that I had left over from last year.  Layer 3 is too big for a half, so I need to get a full sheet to do that one.  Layer one is a little over two fee tall.

The traces were very crude, but it got the general shape and idea across so I traced over them and made some free hand changes.  I also printed out pictures of angel statues, to get ideas about what kind of details I want to eventually add.  Gairy helped  :)

Once I was pleased with the sketches, I brought them out to my new workshop and started cutting them out.  It didn't take very long, with a two nice, new razors.  It did require a lot of patience on my part though, trying to make sure that I didn't break the feather tips as I pulled the wing away from the extra foam. 

Above is layer 1 cut out and placed on top of layer 2, so that I could trace out the exact shape of layer 1.  Confused yet?  Don't worry, it all makes sense in my brain ;)

And finally we have layers 1 and 2.  I cannot wait to cut out 3.  These wings are going to be HUGE!  I'm also excited to work on the detail.  I think that I'm actually going to get to use my dremal tool on them this year.  

I'm hoping to get my hands on a full sheet of foam Friday. 

Stay tuned!

Happy Haunting!

- The Countess









HELP

Ok, I'm trying to move my blog to it's new home, which will still be on blogger, but my link will be spelled correctly this time ;)  (cemetery)


Does anyone have any experience with exporting and importing their blog, using a Mac?


The steps in the help are vague as to whether the user needs to manually save the exported blog to their hard drive themselves, or if it automatically saves, and if it does automatically save, where does it save it to and under what name?


Any advice would be greatly appreciated!


-Frustrated Countess 

Back on Track!

I went to Michael's yesterday to look for plan "B" for my reaper project.  I finally found what I need:

At the tune of $54, I was prepared with the coveted 50% coupon, which dropped the price down to about $30. I figured that it was worth a shot.  I was very pleased when I got it home and it projected my image perfectly on the wall as soon as I turned it on :)  AND it projects in color so the possibilities for uses is ENDLESS!  My husband is all ready trying to figure out how we can use it in the haunt ;)  Also, the bulb is just a regular old spiral bulb that you'd use in a regular light fixture, so that will be easy and cheap to replace if it goes out.

So now I'm antsy as ever to get my reaper's wings started. 

Here's the sketch that I'm going to use:

Pictures of progress to follow shortly!

Happy Haunting,
The Countess

Lessons Learned...

or "Back to the drawing board".  Yeah, it was that kind of weekend. 

I tried to work on three different projects this weekend and ended up right back at the starting point on all of them.  It was frustrating to say the least.

But, now I know what I need to do for at least one of them, to get the desired effect...

Heading to Michael's at lunch to look for my back up plan.

I may need some advice on one of the others.

Hopefully I'll have better news in for the next post :)

Revamping...

Here's the newest version of sketch.  I changed the shape of one wing, which I like much more than the first version :)

Also changed the sleeves of the cloak and the style of the hood and the scythe.

I'm sure that I'll just keep developing it as I go.  Hoping to start on the wings soon.  I'm just trying to figure out how to go about it.

Abandon Amusment Park Pictures

A friend of mine just showed me this website, where there are a collection of pictures of the abandon Six Flags amusement park in New Orleans, LA.

The amusement park was devastated by hurricane Katrina and never reopened. 

Photographers seem to flock there to capture pictures of the creepy ruins that are left.

Currently, there are plans to clear out the debris and build an outlet mall, so the ruins may not be there much longer.

Thankfully, many determined photographers have captured these images for the world:

Abandon Six Flags New Orleans

Haunt Insider

I received quite a pleasant surprise this past weekend when I checked my email.  I had been contacted by Scott of the Vlog, Haunt Insider, letting me know that he would be featuring 2nd Street Cemetery on Haunt Insider's 22nd episode.

I was thrilled upon receiving this news.  YouTube is still quite a foreign animal to me, in matters of it being a great tool for networking and promoting the haunt, so other than posting my video, I really hadn't been making connections with other haunters or promoting my "channel" (see, I'm learning the lingo ;) Scott had simply found me by luck and I'm glad that he did.  The number of hits on my video went up considerably and now I have 12 subscribers ;) *sheepish grin* I know that's not a lot, but it's WAY more than what I had before he spotlighted the haunt.

Anyway, I figured out how to find his channel and watched the episode.  He gave the haunt a nice review, calling attention to many of our homemade props and even showing a clip of our 2011 Home Haunter's Contest video.  He also caught the very embarrassing mistake that I made when creating this blog, in that "cemetery" is spelled wrong in my blog address... DOH!  (I'll talk more about that in an upcoming post.)

I haven't had a chance to watch any of Scott's other episodes of Haunt Insider, but from the one that I saw, it really is a cool way of finding out about other haunts, that I may not have seen on the other Halloween websites that I'm a member of... The Great Pumpkin knows there are a BUNCH of them out there now.

Here is the link to the episode that 2nd Street Cemetery was spotlighted in:
Haunt Insider, Episode 22

The portion about us begins at 8:40, in case you're pressed for time.

Also, if you're a YouTube user, show our fellow haunter some support and subscribe to Scott's channel. :) His channel is JHMDF. 

Hauntingly Yours,
The Countess

Facebook

2nd Street Cemetery is now on Facebook.


A fellow haunter suggested that I put it out there, so I'm giving it a shot. The more exposure the better :)


It's still a work in progress, but so far, it's pretty cool :)


Go check it out!
www.facebook.com/2ndStreetCemetery

I Need THIS!

Oh my...

The price tag on this sucker, $4,500.00. I can justify this ;) This should be motivation for me to start making props to sell :) Too bad they're sold out :(