Gavin's Crypt

Well, as I said in a previous post, Gavin (my 9 year old son) is working on the Tomb Cover from How to Haunt Your House Book 2 (by Shawn & Lynne Mitchell). Here's his progress... We should be completely finished by the weekend, I think we'll be finished sooner...

We've measured the panels and he is getting ready to use a jigsaw for the very first time.We did have an ambulance on stand by just in case...

Here he is actually cutting. He did an excellant job. I was very proud of him... in fact, we were able to dismiss the rescue squad that was on stand by.

I drew some lines on the wall panels, and gave him the dremel tool. I told him to trace the lines. I also said they did not have to be perfect... again, surprisingly, no one had to go to the emergency room.

After he dremeled the lines, he took a wire brush to make them a little more "crack-like".

So this is one of the panels ready for painting. I didn't take a pic of it but we primed it with Monster Mud and then sprayed the entire panel black.

 After the black base coat dried, we went outside. I read somewhere about a technique for weathering where you roll a lighter color over the black and then use a hose to "wash away the top layer". this is what we were trying...

Here Gavin is spraying the panel with water. I think he did a great job so far. For me the jury is still out on this technique. I'll make a decision after we've finished. We still have a few more details to add the the panels..

This is the front panel so far....

 

 This is one of the side panels....

This is the other side panel......

We still have the lid to make. Everything is cut out. We just have to glue it all together and detail it before we can paint it. As soon as we are finished I will post the pics....

Happy Haunting All!

Book Review - How to Haunt Your House Book 2 by Shawn and Lynne Mitchell

My mother in law and brother in law got me this book for my birthday last month. I was so excited to get it.
This book is a professionally put together product. I know I've ranted before on how I dislike the home publisher jobs we get all too often. the pictures are detailed and clear (and large enough that you can actually see them). This is what I've come to expect from these two authors.
So to the "meat and potatoes" of the book. I think all of the projects that are in this volume are explained in enough detail that a novice can be successful in completing them. In fact, my 10 year old son is working on one of them now. (Page 20 "Tomb Cover") All of the steps are clearly outlined. The only thing that might have been helpful for my son would have been measurements and quantities. However, for our purposes we would have probably adjusted the dimensions anyway. To be honest that is really the only negative I could find, and that isn't really a negative is it?
   As with Book 1, this volume gets you thinking of ways to do things that you may not have thought of before. My wife calls it a more "artsy" way of haunting. that it seems to hint of theatrical scene design techniques. I would still like to see a DVD companion to this series.
I highly recommend this book to every home haunter. the argument is always why purchase a book when a lot of techniques are available for free on the internet? My answer is simple... these are tried and true methods that produce top quality results... Support your fellow home haunters and go out and get a copy of How to Haunt your House Book 2>>>
Happy Haunting!!!!
~Bill

Annie's Stone in the yard

So here is what I think I'll do with Annie's stone. I hope that she likes it:)

I used part of a store bought prop from last year... I wanted it to be special or as special as it can be... So here ya go Annie:)

Happy haunting!!!

~Bill

It's begun....

So tonight I started to put the display up... Just positioning the tombstones, but still it's a start...

 Angel statue

 Bird bath & Skelamingo/ memory garden

 Creepy statue

 another creepy statue

 Grave marker

 Another grave marker

 Annie's Stone

The Smith's stone by Jen

So to recap.. I think by the "big day" I should have a total of  5 home made stones/markers completed... the rest of the display will be filled out with store bought stones... I will be adding more details as the month progresses..more pics to follow....

Happy Haunting

~Bill

Annie Voorhies Tombstone Finished.....

I think... Well, at least for now it is... So to recap, this stone is for Annie in Colorado Springs...(my wife says she is as close to a sister in law as I will ever have.) And what better way to show someone that you love 'em then make a tombstone...hehehe... So with what like 47 days left until Halloween here it is....

Here it is with the Monster Mud Coat and I did the initial background painting on the design and the lettering. I actually have to give my wife (Jen) credit for doing the Monster Mud coat while I was at work today. I apologize for the blurriness... I suck at taking pictures.

Here is the first layer of paint. I used a watered down dark grey. There was no method to what I did. I just haphazardly painted away. i left some of the lighter grey showing... I figured that later on in the finishing process it would add another layer of color/dimension.

In this one, I've already dry brushed with a very light grey. I am highlighting the raised letteringon the name... if you get really close to it the letters look carved in granite.

Here is the finished stone. I am hoping that the stone looks weathered and is showing "years" of being out in the rain.. I may add some moss or lichen later on, but I think for now I will go ahead and say voila... it's complete.

I decided that it would be really bad karma if I used her actual birth year so I did it a hundred years earlier. If you notice there's no death date... again I would hate to jinx her... I hope you like it Annie...

Until next time.....

Happy Haunting!!!!

~Bill

Update: First Tombstone Completed!!

So I finished my William Compton tombstone. Here are my pics:

This is the stone with only two coats of Monster Mud. (I know I said I wasn't gonna do it...But I did.)

This is the stone with the final painting complete. This was my very first time ever "tea staining" and "dry brushing".

And here it is at night with some mood lighting and a few prop candles. I think the only thing that I want to add is some moss, and possibly some stains from rain. So tomorrow I should finish my tombstone for Annie... I'll post pics when I have it finished....

Until then Happy Haunting!!!!

~ Bill

Update: First Tombstones

So in my uber procrastinating form, I took my day off today to work all of 30 minutes on my tombstone project. I have two stones in the works at the moment. One is my very first stone, that is my Southern Vampire character "Bill Compton" tribute. My original vision is different than what I actually have now. It is a very basic stone with the Death Head on top and simply stating "William Thomas Compton    1840-186blah".

 I hand-carved the name and letters with a box cutter style knife. It being my first ever attempt I see every single screw up with the lettering. Also the numbers proved to be extra difficult for me. I used a "crack in the stone" to help hide my major screw up with the death date. I decided on this stone not to monster mud it, only because a) the drill I have is not powerful enough to mix it and b) I expect to redo this stone next year to match my original vision for it.
For Father's Day this year my wife and kiddos got me a "Wagner Project Sprayer" as a gift:

                                    

So today gave me the prime opportunity to try it out. I loaded up some black latex paint and sprayed a base coat on the stone.                                        

 

This weekend, since I have a 3 day weekend, we'll finish this stone up. (I know I say that now, but I plan on it this time.)

My second stone is in honor of our good friend Annie in Colorado. My wife has a theory as to why I am doing this stone... you see Annie and I had a huge falling out a few weeks ago over the difference between a scone and a beignet... (actually it was because of the way I pointed this difference out, but that's another story)... my wife says that this stone is as close to an apology as she will ever get from me... she's probably right... so Annie likes cats so I wanted to try a technique out that I've seen on bunches of stones... so after I cut the shape of the stone, I took out the dremel tool and carved this into it:

                              

I used the router attachment and a router bit. I think it turned out well. Then I decided that since I already had the dremel tool out, why not use it to carve the name and epitaph. So this is what I came up with:

                                          

In case the picture isn't clear it says, "Annie M  Loving wife of Brian A Voorhies 1878 - "  I didn't do the base coat today because I still have some detailing I want to do. Hopefully that will be done before the weekend and I will also finish this one. (I am still debating on whether to Monster Mud it or not...)

I have enough foam for about three or four more stones, and enough pink foam for an obelisk. We'll see if i am ambitious enough for that. More to follow, but until then....

Happy Haunting!!!!

~Bill