More Camera Play

Thanks to WicKED, over at Something WicKED this Way Comes, I have learned that using the 2 second delay on my camera, when taking shots of the cemetery at night, is very beneficial :)

Thanks WicKED!!!

 

The blue is INTENSE right now, but once everything is set up, we'll have some different colored lights in there, as well as candles and tiki torches, which totally change the lighting :)

Countdown...

Only 16 days left ;)

 

 

Decided to test out taking pictures with my tripod.  Happy with the results.  Less shaky pictures.  More practice shots to come.

 

Need some great ones for this year's home haunters video.  Always have to stay one step ahead!

 

Happy Haunting!!!

 

- The Countess 

 

 

Witch's Tea 2013

It's that time of year again!  Time for my Mom's Annual Witch's Tea!

We had a great time prepping for this and learned a lot from last year. 

Unfortunately, attendance was hindered by the possibility of Hurricane Karen hitting that day, but we didn't let that get us down!  We went on with the party as planned and while we had fewer witches than last year, we still had a really great time!

First, here's the set up:

Mom and I made the cute little witch's shoes and the flowers in them. Both are projects that we found on Pinterest.  There are templates for the Witch's shoes here.  Flower how to can be found here :)

Spellbook pages were also printed from Pinterest.  I have them all on my Witch's Tea board.

The witch's were super easy to make!  They are Dollar Store black table cloths, Dollar Store witch's hats, garden stakes and balled up plastic bags to make the heads!  That's it!!! The stand for the cauldron was compliments of my fantastic dad :)  He gathered some interesting looking tree limbs and put this together for us.  One of the limbs had awesome lichens growing on it, which added the perfect touch!

We collected various jars and bottles and transformed them into witch jars.  A mixture of Elmer's glue with paint gives the paint a frosty look when applied to the jars.  Printable labels were found here.

 Potions and Spells books were old books that we acquired from a thrift store, spray painted black and then hand painted the symbols and words onto.

Here are the goodies!!!

 

 

In addition to tea, we also had a fabulous mulled wine!  It as made using a packet of Raven's Original Mulling Spices.  It was super sweet but oh so delicious!  I highly recommend it. It was enjoyed by all that tried it.

 

You can purchase some from here: Raven's Mulling Spices

Here are the witchy guests that didn't let a little storm sway their broom sticks away from our gathering!

Remember the witch's with the pink hats, made in support of the one who was about to start treatment for cancer last year?  Well, here she is (on the left) one year later and CANCER FREE!!! =)

 

And of course, you hostess and co-hostess!

 

We really had a blast.  There's nothing like getting a bunch of cackling witches together for goodies, tea and wine :)

 

Hope you all enjoyed the pics!

 

Happy Haunting!

 

Countess

Friday Funday Cartoons!

I forgot that I had promised Halloween cartoons on Fridays!

Here's today's selection!  The Lonesome Ghosts :)

Enjoy!

Progress

I worked on projects all day yesterday.  It was so nice.  I've been able to put a lot more detail into some of my pieces, that I normally would have done, "good enough" just to get it done in the time frame that I had.  It was refreshing to be able to become fully immersed in my projects.

Here's what I did...

Painted and sealed the stem for on my jack o' lantern scarecrow head.  I'm very happy with the results :) He needed a stem do-over badly.  I think I'll revisit this topic in a blog post all it's own ;)

 

Created a zombie arm, that I will put I front of a tombstone somewhere in the yard. Paper mached it and then sculpted knuckles and hand bones.

 

 

Sculpted knuckles on the Raven Reaper hands.  Really pleased with this too. My hand making has come a LONG way since the first set that I made on Edgar. I'm thinking that I'll create new ground breakers next year.  I've gained so much experience and improved technique since I built those guys.

-

I also re-mached one of the Fantasia ghost's arms.  I found out how weak it was when I tried him out in the yard, so I figured enforcement was a good idea.

 

Doesn't seem like much when it's all in one place, but all of that sculpting took a lot of time.

 

Tomorrow, the projects continue with entryway column completion... hopefully ;)

 

Only 20 days left my friends!

 

Happy Haunting!

Blocking...

Since we have so much new stuff going out into the yard this year, I thought it would be a good idea to start figuring out where all of the new things were going to go.

One by one, I put new pieces out, where I thought that they "fit" into the flow of the yard. 

Here's the new monument.  It needs to be next to our cow skull scarecrow, b/c when all is said and done, it will run off of the same fog machine as the scarecrow :) 

I also did a close up.  I'm SO excited with how great this thing looks from the view's stand point.  I cannot wait to get it finished and into the yard!!!

I put out the Raven Reaper's armature, next to Edgar's stone, seeing that Edgar's most famously known poem is about a raven, I thought that it was fitting.  I also put out the Fantasia ghost.... and saw that it needs a LOT of work.  Obviously, I need to change the drape that's on the front to black, but the arms need to be closer together, so that he doesn't look like he's performing a ballet pose.  AND he needs a longer PVC piece to be mounted on, so that he seems to hover over the ground, not be sitting on it. With that said, I'll have to put him back out there once I get the longer piece on, to gauge if he'll be obscuring the view of anything.

 

Last I have the obelisk.  Looks good there for now, but again, it will be taller than this once the base is added so, this is a "for now" position.  As you can see, I have a knack for putting my finger in the way when taking pictures... need to find better placement for that as well ;) lol

 

 

When all was said and done, and a I had run in and out of the house and from front to back yard, in 85 degree and HUMID weather, this is how I felt.  Where did all of our BEAUTIFUL weather go?!?! 

  

 

Hopefully, we'll be getting cooler temps again soon.

 

Until then, keep on haunting!

 

Off to paper mache and paint the afternoon away.

 

Happy Haunting everyone!

 

Don't forget... tonight, American Horror Story Coven premiers on FX @ 9:00PM Central!