One of these days I would like to post good news. Unfortunately, today is not that day. We had a vicious thunderstorm roll through Saturday night. This storm caused the city sewer to clog and in turn flood basements of homes and businesses all over the city. All of the cardboard I had saved up and most of the wood is now gone. I noticed the flooding and tried to save as much as possible but I could not get it all. I lost some of my Halloween props, all o four X-mas decorations, all of the decorations and things left over from our wedding, and a crap load of miscellaneous things. Can you believe it?

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Sorry I haven't been able to upload pics yet. I haven't even had time to finish the hybrid (hot glue/paper mache) skull yet. It's very difficult when you have 2 kids and one of them is sick. I have no time to do anything. The last pics I uploaded showed the last time I was able to work on anything.

As for the haunt itself, I am beginning to get frustrated because the people who said they would help have now backed out, leaving me to do it alone...impossible. If I can't get the 2 people left who have shown any interest to do anything, then I have failed again and the haunt will be pushed off another year. I really don't knbow what to do. I emailed a flyer to the local high school asking for volunteers and that resulted in zero replies. I am at my wits end and am starting to realize that to put on a haunt you need money and that is the only way to get people to help. I once saw an entire haunt for sale on eBay for around $9,000 and couldn't get financing. I don't know what to do...it's frustrating to be someone who lives for Halloween and have to sit back watching guys who have big bucks and no clue put on huge haunts and make big profits.

I will attempt to get at least one hybrid skull done by the end of the week and post the pics. Then I will try to get some volunteers for the haunt, but I must admit (regretfully) it doesn't look good. The only thing I have for the haunt right now is a donation of food and drinks. Hell, I even had The Horror Dome say they would donate props. I only wanted the broken ones so they wouldn't loose money on the good ones. What to do, what to do? Well, thanks for listening to me rant again. I know that someday I will have a haunt, but I need money.

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I found out that by using hot glue you can make better defined teeth than the paper mache method. So today's project is going to be to paper mache a skull except for the teeth. I will use hot glue to go over the teeth. Hopefully it'll look great.

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OK, so I need really cheap and easy walls for my haunt. I think I have the perfect solution and want to share with other who are in the same pirate ship with me. I have a budget of like $0 not counting the glue sticks lol. Anyway, for the walls I have found that I can get free pallets. At first I got a bunch of pallets and began sawing them up into 2' lengths so I could make 4' X 8' walls. This would take all of forever to build walls. My great epiphany (hope I spelled it right) came the other day when I realized that my rooms do not need to be exactly 12' X 16'. All I really have to do is cut the ends of the planks so that they are flush with the support beams (the parts the forklift blades go between). This way I can bolt or screw two together side by side. I can put them on top of each other like this site: http://www.ghostsofhalloween.com/projects/pallet_walkway/ 

Some walls can be left as is (just a little sanding so no one gets splinters) or for most of mine they will be covered with at least one layer of cardbord. The cardboard can be painted, but on my limited budget I will likely cover most of them with black plastic and decorate them with hot glue and paper mache skulls and bones. I also have 2 packages of that scene setters dungeon brick stuff. I could use some more if I find a good price on it. I got mine after Halloween for about $2 per roll!

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I uploaded a few skull pics. One is unpainted paper mache, one is unpainted hot glue, and the other 2 are hot glue with the white base coat. Since I took these pics I got better at making hot glue skulls and they are smoother than the one in the pics.

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For hot glue skulls go to http://www.madhauscreative.com/cheap%20skulls.html

I have not yet gotten a smooth skull this way, but since I am corpsing them anyway it doesn't matter. They are also quite flexible. Thanks again to Woodhegm for point this out to me.

I will upload pics of the mache skulls we are making. I too need a billion or so lol. I also found that straight wallpaper paste from Wal-Mart works great.

Stolloween is the King of paper mache. I love his skulls and especially the gargoyle he made. I may try to whip up a couple of those guys for the haunt.

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So here I was dunking my tiny little strips of newspaper in the maceh glue and sticking it on the skull and taking all of forever to cover on skull. My wife took art classes in school and said she would show me something. She took one of the skulls, painted the mach paste over it and plunked on this huge piece of newspaper, then painted over it with mache glue. She did this until the skull was done in all of 5 minutes for both layers. I had rummaged through my Halloween collection and found that I have 6 skulls that I can mache over. Though it takes forever to dry, the way my wife was doing the paper mache works great. Also, thanks to woodhegm, I have used to hot glue method, and found it works quite well. It takes a while to cover the skull, but dries fast and leaves a pretty cool texture on the skull. This is still the slow way to do it, but I think that the help I was had for the haunt may have backed out, leaving me holding the bag.

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I just need to vent for a minute or 2. With everything that is going on with Rowan, I am finding it very hard to build anything for the haunt. I have kept it as simple as I could, but I need to build some corpses (probably 20-30 of them) and no matter what I try, I can't seem to get anywhere. My idea was to mold and cast the few foam skulls I do have and corpse them, but I haven't been successful yet. I can't buy the expensive molding/casting compunds out there so that is limiting in and of itself. I also need to build cheap walls. I am going with cardboard for the interior walls and wood for the exterior. I also need to paint them. I have my brother helping me to build the walls, and I am hoping to get some volunteers to help me out this summer. I can't just quit on the haunted house this year like I have every other year, because this is for my daughter. I have some people donating things like drinks and food, but I need props...well, help building them. Does anyone have any suggetions? It is May already and I feel I can get the haunt build over the summer, but I would need a lot of volunteers lol. What do some of you guys do? Well, thanks for listening, I'll go build some of the walls now :)

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I finally get a chance to write an update. We are home now, Rowan and I. She had her first birthday on the 16th. She is doing quite well. She has taken her first steps and can even say a word or two. Unfortunately, during the surgery to remove the portion of the tumor that was in her neck they damaged some nerves that control her swallowing. She has to be fed through a tube in her nose and requires constant care. The doctors are optimistic that she will be able to swallow again, but it may take a long time for the nerves to regenerate. She has an MRI scheduled for next week and we will find out whether or not we return to Boston with her for more surgery.

I also want to thank everyone for their support through these difficult times. It isn't over by any means, but at least we are home where we are more comfortable :)

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