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:

Haunted Mansion Halloween: DIY Singing Busts!

I don't want to alarm anyone, friends, but Halloween is less than a week away. Have you watched all the spooky movies? Had enough pumpkin-spiced things? Glittered your bat wings? I'm just saying, this is the week to EMBRACE YOUR SPOOP.  

(To that point, I'm currently wearing gold foil stars-and-moons leggings for the first time ever. John declared them "distracting." MISSION ACCOMPLISHED.)

Now let's get to my most requested - and ironically, easiest - tutorial of all our Haunted Mansion builds: the singing busts. 

Yes, this is in our yard.  Honest.

This DIY is so simple you're about to call us big ol' cheaters - but remember, you can cheat, too. I can show you the worrrrrrld... of cheater DIYs. Just keep scrolling.

While the build itself is cheap and easy, you are going to need a digital projector, which is a definite cost. I'm told you can get holiday window projectors for as little as $30, but make sure you can plug in a USB to supply your own video.

John and I have a fancier projector that plugs into a laptop, left over from my book tour days, which gets a lot of crafting use. So if you make a lot of large signs, props, etc, it's worth the investment.

Right, let's get to this oh-so-easy build. Ready?

1) Find a Singing Busts video on Youtube. (We used this one.) Project it onto a large piece of pink insulation foam, backing up until they're the size you want.

2) Trace

 

This is tricky because so much of the busts are in shadow, but do your best to fill in where the heads *should* be.

3) Tweak your outlines 'til you're happy:

My bases were super wonky, so I went over them with a paper template to make them more symmetrical.

4) Cut Using A Long Craft Blade



Remember to leave the bottom ledge, so the busts are all connected on one piece of foam! This will keep the spacing right.

Also try to cut all the way through with the blade in one go, for smoother edges.

5) Paint The Fronts White