Friday, October 28, 2022

Our 2022 Haunted Mansion Halloween: FULL WALKTHROUGH REVEAL

Welcome, fooolish mortals! Our Haunted Mansion Halloween is ready for its swinging wake, and there's no turning back now. Ready to see?

(EEEEEEEEE)

Our tour begins here, with this video:



What's that? You want a few dozen more pretty photos from every conceivable angle, both day and night?

Well, I mean, if you insist...

Here's the nighttime panorama from the street, I'm in love with all the colors:


And here's the transformation from day to night:



OoooOOOooh.

To the right we have the bride and singing busts:


We added a hat stand by the bride as a nod to her dearly departed husbands.


The bride is absolutely stunning at night, especially since we added a small fan to blow her veil around.

Amazingly you can see the singing busts even while it's light out:




Though of course they stand out best after dark:



This suit of armor is easy to miss, tucked in the front bushes:



And you remember Leota's window:




Here's the front door area during the day:



... then at night:



I painted the window silhouettes on white butcher paper:



Then we propped a color-changing LED floodlight behind it for this amazing glow.

This is also the black light area, so the hitchhiking ghosts & my monster wreath fluoresce after dark.



I don't love my monster wreath - my struggle with wreaths continues - but after dark most of it fluoresces and looks hilarious from a distance, so we're calling it "good 'nuff."


Those giant muppet eyes are my favorite, heh. 

Back out to the yard for more beauty shots:



Hurricane Ian left our street lined with piles of giant dead branches... so we put those to use and made a mini hedge behind our dancers. Then we covered the hedge with Spanish Moss from a local parking lot, which looks delightfully cob-webby during the day:



Our dancers are hard to see in photos, but the moving lights at night help them stand out. I like how they seem to flicker in and out as you walk by, and how the moss catches our accent lights:


Nice and ghostly.

 Here's a reminder of what these two look like with a solid backdrop behind them:

Tho I did add a cape to the fella.

One thing that looks equally amazing day OR night is our Doom Buggy:



The sign is a late addition - another piece of insulation foam I hand-painted - and it makes the scene for me. Especially if you get the angle right so it hides the Buggy's front legs!

The nighttime view with the fog looks just as awesome, but far more eeeeeevil:

Tiny Tim the thestral is working those glowing eyes.
(We also made Tim; click that link to see how!)

One more, because I'm indecisive:

And just for fun, here's the view from INSIDE the Buggy:



It's wild watching the fog shoot out from under you. Super fun.



And that's our Haunted Mansion Halloween!

I'll end with the last thing you haven't seen: our costumes.

I originally wanted to be Hatbox, because of course I did - but with the time constraints I opted for something more simple:



I added a collar & apron to a dress I already owned to make my own version of a Mansion maid. The lovely batty headband was an unexpected gift from Elle Garrett Designs (thank you again, Elle!) and John helped me design the perfect name tag:


This is just printed card stock I doubled up for strength.

In fact it was SO perfect I asked John to make a bunch more as stickers we can give out:



We get a lot of Trick-or-Treaters without costumes, so I can offer these as a "free costume"!

(We also have glow-in-the-dark temporary tattoos for anyone who wants them - which glow EXTRA bright under our black lights.)

As for John, I bet you can guess his costume from the candy bucket:


John made the barrel from EVA foam, then I did the finishing. Here's a quick process pic, since I'm proud of my wood-graining:



As I'm sure you've guessed, John's going to be Dynamite Guy from the stretching portraits:


John sewed his own sash, painted some shorts, and assembled the rest from thrift finds:


That jacket is heavy velvet, so I expect the dynamite won't be the only thing ready to explode by the end of the night. :D (It's still sooo hot here, and every time we set up I get half a dozen more mosquito bites. FLORIDA. Bah.)

We have a few friends joining us in costume Halloween night to help give out candy and stickers and manage the photo ops, so I hope to have a few more fun photos for you next week.

Til then, that's our tour! Happy Halloween, my friends, and thanks for following along through all our batty builds and silliness.

P.S. In case you missed any, here are all the Haunted Mansion builds we posted this year:

And here are some of the colorful lights we use and love, in case you want a head start on future holiday decorating:


Color-Changing Candelabra Bulbs, 2pk

We use these in our porch lights, love that you can set any color you want with the remotes, then back to white when the party's over.



LED Floodlight (2pk)

And we use these inside in our back room (pics here) as well as outside for some of these displays. Love them for both!

16 comments:

  1. Wow!! I'd say you've outdone yourselves but every Halloween/party theme has been amazing!

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  2. WOW-WOW-WOW! I am in awe, as I am every year, at what you do!

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  3. Amazing! I think you should take the bow of the wreath - it looks too wreath-y with it :-)

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  4. Amazing! It all looks so good!

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  5. I get such a kick out of your Halloween decorations every year. I have spent my entire adult life in apartments but, knock on wood, we should have an actual house by next Halloween and I am looking forward to decorating (probably nothing this elaborate, though).

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  6. What a cool display! (Muppet Monster Wreath is my favorite part I think. LOL) I know next to nothing about the Haunted Mansion but this is one of my favorite setups you've done I think. It's so colorful and fun-spooky. Hope it's a great night for you guys!

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  7. Everyone needs a house like yours this time of year! Amazing!

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  8. Storms, y'all's setups just get more impressive every year! Love seeing the final product after all the process posts. (Also, side note, you have never posted a picture of a wreath I didn't think looked amazing, so don't worry; you're doing great!)

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  9. I LOVE the Cookie Monster gone to the spooky side wreath!

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  10. I am speechless! You guys are incredibly creative and talented! I can barely muster the energy to carve a pumpkin!

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  11. Gorgeous! I wish we lived closer so we could see it in person. (And to lend a hand with props ;-)

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  12. Jen and John, this is BEYOND incredible. Your projects have amazed me for over a decade, but this takes the cake (not wrecked)!!!!!!!!

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  13. I love everything about this. You did an amazing job!

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  14. Hi! I just stumbled onto your blog this past week. Your Halloween yard for 2022 was amazing as was last year's. I was curious.....do you have a post or tutorial for the talking head statue busts animation? Those are awesome....well EVERYTHING IS! We do small scale stuff on our front yard, I usually save way too many things to use....old grapevine trunks, my old army footlocker, a part of a pallet that looks like a jail cell, weathered wood planks, metal baskets for skeletons and we've made lots of tombstones out of pressed fiber wood. I would love to make a few of those chicken wire "ghosts" too....at some point
    Thanks for sharing...Susan in the PNW

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    1. Hi Susan! Your Halloweens sounds amazing; home-made is always the best in my book. :)

      And I'm so glad you asked; looks like I forgot to include the Singing Busts link with the rest of the builds, whoops! I just added that in, and yes, it's a full tutorial. Hope that helps.

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  15. Madame Leota looks as uf she is about to open her eyes!!

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