----
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Upside Down Person Costume
'To create my head, we went to our local wig store and got one of the Styrofoam heads that the wigs sit on and painted it flesh color, adding eyes and some red lipstick. The wig store threw in a free blonde wig if I promised to show them the end results, completing the look. For my "shirt" my grandmother fashioned pants out of some crazy fabric she had, and then attached the head to the "neck" of the "shirt" with sturdy needles. To make my feet look like hands, I wore nude colored socks. For my "legs" my dad screwed a pair of my old sneakers onto thick cardboard rolls leftover from roofing material and then stapled the ends of my homemade shirt onto the shoes. We also put in handholds inside the rolls so that I could hold my "feet" in the air. Fortunately, the material we used to make my shirt was see-through enough that I could navigate my way around. Total cost: $16' -- Lizette Blohm
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Head on a Platter
'I had a lot of old cardboard boxes in my garage that I was trying to get rid of, which sparked the idea. Once I had the idea, I had to figure out how to make it comfortable to wear and yet still look realistic.
'Once I'd selected the box to use for the table, I cut a hole in the top large enough for the head to fit comfortably through. I also cut a hole to drop the candy into (since his arms were underneath the box). Then I used a hot glue gun to attach a plastic shopping bag underneath the hole and inside the box for the candy to drop into ...' -- Mary Lou Bousch(instructions cont.)
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Dog Being Eaten By Alligator Costume
'You'll need a latex alligator you/prop. Depending on the size of your dog, I suggest an alligator that is approximately 32 in. long and retails for $11 at Toys 'r' Us and other toy stores and outlets. For a stationary effect, simply opens its jaws and slide your dog inside, back end first. To create the illusion of a walking, chewing, swallowing alligator, cut leg holes the size of your dog's legs, slide him inside, pull his little legs through the holes, and the illusion is complete. When Halloween is over, the latex alligator makes a great swamp decoration!' -- Margaret Truesdale
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Appetizer:Decayed Corpse Chips with Entrail Salsa
blue corn tortilla chips
coffin
salsa
'Arrange the blue corn chips in a coffin in the shape of a long-dead corpse. The natural blue corn chips have almost a dusky shade of brown in them that hints of decayed skin. Serve with a nice blood-red chunky salsa as accompanying entrails.
'To get more elaborate, find a larger coffin that happens to fit a lifesize skeleton. Line the coffin with crushed velvet, prop up the skeleton, arrang the chips around him, and set the crystal bowl of "entrails" between his calves...yummm...
'If you cannot find a coffin, find a clean plastic skull or assorted bones, put them in a large serving bowl, then arrange the blue chips around the bones as the decaying flesh!' -- Ed Ballard
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Main course:Cat Dump Casserole
1 c. baking mix (like bisquick)
1 cup shredded cheddar
1 lb. ground meat (beef, pork, turkey)
To make litter
2 c. long-grain rice
3 3/4 c. water
2 tsp. salt
2 tbs. butter or margarine
Preheat oven to 350.
'Mix dump ingredients and mold into "logs" of various sizes. Bake on ungreased baking sheet(not touching each other)about 20 minutes, until brown, crispy and firm.
'While meat cooks combine litter ingredients in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer 14 minutes without lifting lid.
'Fluff rice with a fork, set aside.
'When "dumps" are done, transfer to a dish lined with papertowels to drain.
'Spoon rice "litter" and meat "dumps" into letter pan and serve with scoop!' -- Carlos Aguilar
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Beverage:Bloody Eyeballs on the Rocks
12 Radishes
7 oz Olives (pimento-stuffed)
46 oz Tomato juice
'Prepare these bloody eyeballs the day before your plan to serve them.
'Peel radishes, leaving thin streaks of red skin on them for blood vessels. Using the tip of the vegetable peeler or a small knife, carefully scoop out a small hole in each radish. Stuff a green olive, pimento side out, in each hole. Place 1 radish eyeball in each section of an empty ice cube tray. You may need to pare your eyeballs down a bit to fit. Fill the tray with water and freeze overnight.
'Pour tall glasses 3/4 full of tomato juice and add a pair of eyeballs to each glass.' -- Marilyn B. Finch
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Dessert:Killer Rats Cake
'The Killer Rats Cake began life as a pattern for a carved pumpkin. Both the pumpkin and the cake depict a severed human arm being devoured by three large, ugly rats. Well, ugly in their cake incarnation, at any rate; they're sort of cute on the pumpkin. The cake arm was constructed in layers, from the inside out, so that a slice of the cake looked like a cross-section of an arm, complete with ulna, radius, bone marrow, skin, etc. Admittedly, this did not make for a spectacularly dynamic presentation, at least as compared to the cakes that burned or shot blood or secreted bodily fluids, but I think it was just as effective, in its understated fashion. Sometimes even I opt for subtlety and finesse over gaudy drama.' -- Barbara Jo & Barbara May
Find the instructions here
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Total transformation:Canvas Castle
'To build a castle facade on the front of Matt's garage, Matt first priced out 4x8 ft plywood and 2x4" wood to build it with, but it was going to be $250, just in lumber in CA.
'My friend Matt purchase 2 16ft by 12ft canvas painting drop cloths from Home Depot for $26 each. Stiched together with zip ties, it makes a 16 ft tall castle 24ft wide. 3 Gallons of gray paint later, and he had a grey drop cloth to paint a castle on.
'Matt made a frame with three long pieces of wood from Home Depot and secured it to the roof with sandbags or water cubes. The canvas is grommeted and screwed to the PVC top bar. It covers the front of the house The black parts of the castle are marked out with black paint and dark grey paint was used to form the grout/mortar. Total cost: $38.' -- Chris' Halloween Displays
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Outdoors:Skull Blood Waterfall
'This is one of my favorite effects. I don't know that I have seen anyone else do this.
A ceramic skull spits a stream of blood from 8 feet high.
'Required:
Ceramic Skull ($8)
Sump Pump (I borrowed one from a friend, but Home Depot has them for $18)
Garden Hose
Plastic Tub ($2)
Water & Red Food Coloring ($1.50)'
Find the instructions here
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Outdoors:Mr. Boogedy's Statue
'Step 1 -- Making the body.
This portion might be done other ways, some may be simpler, as it has been done elsewhere, but we took the faster route as always.
'Making a complete duplicate of one's self to maintain and human form, as you can see on the right is done by foiling individual parts of your body, or someone else's and then duct taping over the foil. The only real trick to this is not taping it too tightly so that the model underneath may still keep his/her blood flowing.' (instructions cont.)
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Indoor entertainment:Duct tape guy
'First you will need:
2 Rolls of duct tape. Any color will do although I was lucky to find some beige at the surplus store
Good Pair of scissors.
Old clothes, including shirt, socks, pajamma bottoms or pants and gloves (optional).
Second, choose a subject. dress them in the old clothes as this will be what the tape will stick to.
Once the subject is in the old clothes you can begin to wrap them with duct tape. Start at the feet an work your way up.'
(instructions cont.)
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Indoor entertainment:Create Your Own Scary Sound Effects CD
'There are a lot of free scary sounds available on the Internet. You can start your search here for some great Halloween sounds. Then grab some midi’s from this site, and this site and you should have a good library of basic gory sounds. If you’re still in need of some hair raising effects then you can find some real classic sound bites from the greatest horror movies right here.
'Some of these moans, groans and screams are pretty short, so you might want to queue them up in succession a few times for more effect.
'Now use your CD burner software to start building your play list. Add songs from your existing CD’s if you have some scary music on hand (Bauhaus, Death Metal, Nurse with Wound are a few of my favorites) to create a more musical playlist. Play it through a few times and fine-tune your sound effect placements and play order. Burn your CD! Happy Halloween!' -- Halloween-blog.com
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Indoor entertainment:How to Make Homemade Fog For Almost No $$
'Dry ice can be used in many ways to create a nice foggy atmosphere. Do have adequate ventilation, however, as it needs to be allowed to circulate as it melts and becomes fog. You can put a piece into a big pot, add warm or hot water and let the fog pour out as it melts. You can pour hot or boiling water on top of it to accelerate the melting and, thus, the fog output. Of course, faster melting means it won’t last as long, but it will create a higher density and amount of fog. A small fan can disperse the fog around the room. Don’t add it to drinks, because it should not be eaten.
'Dry ice should never, however, be placed into a closed bottle, as it could cause an explosion. Also, do not place dry ice in a small closet or walk in cooler, as the extra carbon dioxide gas will accumulate and kill you.
'Dry ice costs about $1 per pound, and can be obtained from some ice cream vendors. Check the local listings for a place near you.' -- Alice Langholt
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*
p.s. Hey. Okay, now we're into the serious Halloween countdown final days. Visit your local spooky house before it's too late. Wherever I am right now, I know that's what I'll be doing among other things. Enjoy your last anticipation filled weekend, folks. You, especially, Misanthrope.
For your costume, may I suggest ....
Upside Down Person Costume'To create my head, we went to our local wig store and got one of the Styrofoam heads that the wigs sit on and painted it flesh color, adding eyes and some red lipstick. The wig store threw in a free blonde wig if I promised to show them the end results, completing the look. For my "shirt" my grandmother fashioned pants out of some crazy fabric she had, and then attached the head to the "neck" of the "shirt" with sturdy needles. To make my feet look like hands, I wore nude colored socks. For my "legs" my dad screwed a pair of my old sneakers onto thick cardboard rolls leftover from roofing material and then stapled the ends of my homemade shirt onto the shoes. We also put in handholds inside the rolls so that I could hold my "feet" in the air. Fortunately, the material we used to make my shirt was see-through enough that I could navigate my way around. Total cost: $16' -- Lizette Blohm
For your nephew's costume, may I suggest ...
Head on a Platter'I had a lot of old cardboard boxes in my garage that I was trying to get rid of, which sparked the idea. Once I had the idea, I had to figure out how to make it comfortable to wear and yet still look realistic.
'Once I'd selected the box to use for the table, I cut a hole in the top large enough for the head to fit comfortably through. I also cut a hole to drop the candy into (since his arms were underneath the box). Then I used a hot glue gun to attach a plastic shopping bag underneath the hole and inside the box for the candy to drop into ...' -- Mary Lou Bousch(instructions cont.)
Dog Being Eaten By Alligator Costume'You'll need a latex alligator you/prop. Depending on the size of your dog, I suggest an alligator that is approximately 32 in. long and retails for $11 at Toys 'r' Us and other toy stores and outlets. For a stationary effect, simply opens its jaws and slide your dog inside, back end first. To create the illusion of a walking, chewing, swallowing alligator, cut leg holes the size of your dog's legs, slide him inside, pull his little legs through the holes, and the illusion is complete. When Halloween is over, the latex alligator makes a great swamp decoration!' -- Margaret Truesdale
For your dinner, may I suggest ...
Appetizer:Decayed Corpse Chips with Entrail Salsablue corn tortilla chips
coffin
salsa
'Arrange the blue corn chips in a coffin in the shape of a long-dead corpse. The natural blue corn chips have almost a dusky shade of brown in them that hints of decayed skin. Serve with a nice blood-red chunky salsa as accompanying entrails.
'To get more elaborate, find a larger coffin that happens to fit a lifesize skeleton. Line the coffin with crushed velvet, prop up the skeleton, arrang the chips around him, and set the crystal bowl of "entrails" between his calves...yummm...
'If you cannot find a coffin, find a clean plastic skull or assorted bones, put them in a large serving bowl, then arrange the blue chips around the bones as the decaying flesh!' -- Ed Ballard
Main course:Cat Dump Casserole1 c. baking mix (like bisquick)
1 cup shredded cheddar
1 lb. ground meat (beef, pork, turkey)
To make litter
2 c. long-grain rice
3 3/4 c. water
2 tsp. salt
2 tbs. butter or margarine
Preheat oven to 350.
'Mix dump ingredients and mold into "logs" of various sizes. Bake on ungreased baking sheet(not touching each other)about 20 minutes, until brown, crispy and firm.
'While meat cooks combine litter ingredients in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer 14 minutes without lifting lid.
'Fluff rice with a fork, set aside.
'When "dumps" are done, transfer to a dish lined with papertowels to drain.
'Spoon rice "litter" and meat "dumps" into letter pan and serve with scoop!' -- Carlos Aguilar
Beverage:Bloody Eyeballs on the Rocks12 Radishes
7 oz Olives (pimento-stuffed)
46 oz Tomato juice
'Prepare these bloody eyeballs the day before your plan to serve them.
'Peel radishes, leaving thin streaks of red skin on them for blood vessels. Using the tip of the vegetable peeler or a small knife, carefully scoop out a small hole in each radish. Stuff a green olive, pimento side out, in each hole. Place 1 radish eyeball in each section of an empty ice cube tray. You may need to pare your eyeballs down a bit to fit. Fill the tray with water and freeze overnight.
'Pour tall glasses 3/4 full of tomato juice and add a pair of eyeballs to each glass.' -- Marilyn B. Finch
Dessert:Killer Rats Cake'The Killer Rats Cake began life as a pattern for a carved pumpkin. Both the pumpkin and the cake depict a severed human arm being devoured by three large, ugly rats. Well, ugly in their cake incarnation, at any rate; they're sort of cute on the pumpkin. The cake arm was constructed in layers, from the inside out, so that a slice of the cake looked like a cross-section of an arm, complete with ulna, radius, bone marrow, skin, etc. Admittedly, this did not make for a spectacularly dynamic presentation, at least as compared to the cakes that burned or shot blood or secreted bodily fluids, but I think it was just as effective, in its understated fashion. Sometimes even I opt for subtlety and finesse over gaudy drama.' -- Barbara Jo & Barbara May
Find the instructions here
To decorate your house, may I suggest ....
Total transformation:Canvas Castle'To build a castle facade on the front of Matt's garage, Matt first priced out 4x8 ft plywood and 2x4" wood to build it with, but it was going to be $250, just in lumber in CA.
'My friend Matt purchase 2 16ft by 12ft canvas painting drop cloths from Home Depot for $26 each. Stiched together with zip ties, it makes a 16 ft tall castle 24ft wide. 3 Gallons of gray paint later, and he had a grey drop cloth to paint a castle on.
'Matt made a frame with three long pieces of wood from Home Depot and secured it to the roof with sandbags or water cubes. The canvas is grommeted and screwed to the PVC top bar. It covers the front of the house The black parts of the castle are marked out with black paint and dark grey paint was used to form the grout/mortar. Total cost: $38.' -- Chris' Halloween Displays
Outdoors:Skull Blood Waterfall'This is one of my favorite effects. I don't know that I have seen anyone else do this.
A ceramic skull spits a stream of blood from 8 feet high.
'Required:
Ceramic Skull ($8)
Sump Pump (I borrowed one from a friend, but Home Depot has them for $18)
Garden Hose
Plastic Tub ($2)
Water & Red Food Coloring ($1.50)'
Find the instructions here
Outdoors:Mr. Boogedy's Statue'Step 1 -- Making the body.
This portion might be done other ways, some may be simpler, as it has been done elsewhere, but we took the faster route as always.
'Making a complete duplicate of one's self to maintain and human form, as you can see on the right is done by foiling individual parts of your body, or someone else's and then duct taping over the foil. The only real trick to this is not taping it too tightly so that the model underneath may still keep his/her blood flowing.' (instructions cont.)
Indoor entertainment:Duct tape guy'First you will need:
2 Rolls of duct tape. Any color will do although I was lucky to find some beige at the surplus store
Good Pair of scissors.
Old clothes, including shirt, socks, pajamma bottoms or pants and gloves (optional).
Second, choose a subject. dress them in the old clothes as this will be what the tape will stick to.
Once the subject is in the old clothes you can begin to wrap them with duct tape. Start at the feet an work your way up.'
(instructions cont.)
Indoor entertainment:Create Your Own Scary Sound Effects CD'There are a lot of free scary sounds available on the Internet. You can start your search here for some great Halloween sounds. Then grab some midi’s from this site, and this site and you should have a good library of basic gory sounds. If you’re still in need of some hair raising effects then you can find some real classic sound bites from the greatest horror movies right here.
'Some of these moans, groans and screams are pretty short, so you might want to queue them up in succession a few times for more effect.
'Now use your CD burner software to start building your play list. Add songs from your existing CD’s if you have some scary music on hand (Bauhaus, Death Metal, Nurse with Wound are a few of my favorites) to create a more musical playlist. Play it through a few times and fine-tune your sound effect placements and play order. Burn your CD! Happy Halloween!' -- Halloween-blog.com
Indoor entertainment:How to Make Homemade Fog For Almost No $$'Dry ice can be used in many ways to create a nice foggy atmosphere. Do have adequate ventilation, however, as it needs to be allowed to circulate as it melts and becomes fog. You can put a piece into a big pot, add warm or hot water and let the fog pour out as it melts. You can pour hot or boiling water on top of it to accelerate the melting and, thus, the fog output. Of course, faster melting means it won’t last as long, but it will create a higher density and amount of fog. A small fan can disperse the fog around the room. Don’t add it to drinks, because it should not be eaten.
'Dry ice should never, however, be placed into a closed bottle, as it could cause an explosion. Also, do not place dry ice in a small closet or walk in cooler, as the extra carbon dioxide gas will accumulate and kill you.
'Dry ice costs about $1 per pound, and can be obtained from some ice cream vendors. Check the local listings for a place near you.' -- Alice Langholt
*
p.s. Hey. Okay, now we're into the serious Halloween countdown final days. Visit your local spooky house before it's too late. Wherever I am right now, I know that's what I'll be doing among other things. Enjoy your last anticipation filled weekend, folks. You, especially, Misanthrope.