Another productive day...

I managed to get 3 more dolls painted today and I also set up a makeshift painting area in our bonus room. It is definitely easier having a space to work in and having all my stuff in one place....maybe I will end up taking over the whole room? I'm going to need space anyway for my airbrush and I'm wanting to try out casting my own molds too. Lots of new things to do. Here is what I have right now.

Just a corner...for now.

My tree is in the garage because I don't want to have to carry it downstairs and through a doorway when it's finally done. As of right now, the base with roots and the middle of the trunk are formed with chicken wire and wrapped in tape. They are ready to start the paper maché but there is one problem, I don't have any paper. Looks like I will finally be getting that subscription to the Seattle Times.

This pic is just the chicken wire, no tape.

I don't know how much I will be getting done this weekend because I'm going to be attending the Mother Earth News Fair in Puyallup. I'm looking forward to learning lots of cool things and basically hanging out with a bunch of hippies! For now I will leave you with some pictures of the dolls that I have painted, I will probably be adding to some of them when I get my airbrush but for now they are just painted with brush and acrylic paint. Enjoy and have a great weekend.

It's never too early to plan for Halloween!

My husband has been waiting his entire life to finally have a house of his own that he can decorate for Halloween.  It took some time but after 11 years of marriage and moving all over the world he finally convinced me that Halloween is really where it's at as far as decorating is concerned. Last Halloween was our first Halloween in OUR house and it was amazing, all the years of talking about how when we had our own place we would build our own props and we could finally do it! We built a coffin like we had always wanted to do, we made a cage for our prisoner skeleton, some plywood tombstones and enlisted our neighbors to help us scare the crap out of the neighborhood kids. We had a blast! We had so much fun that only one picture was taken the whole night because we were too busy handing out candy and scaring people.

I did however, take some pictures of props as I finished them so here are a few.

 This was the house the morning of Halloween.

 This was our super simple cage for the skeleton.

This was a gravestone before I put the words on it.

Costumes are also important so here is my daughter in her costume and a picture of me with just my makeup on (I wore a santa suit and hat also).

This year those same neighbors are joining up with us to have the most epic Halloween ever. The plans have been made, the yard is mapped out and even though it's still only May construction starts now because we are even more ambitious this year. I have started on the huge 8 foot tree that will be in the front yard thanks to a great tutorial on Dead Spider. I have also started collecting dolls to paint, here is a preview:

Revamping the Old Blog

I haven't written on here in forever so I decided it was time for a total overhaul. If I have any old followers (which I doubt) this is not going to be anything like the old Friday Night Ambulance, I'm using this to document my Halloween prop-making obsession. I'm hoping to attract some like-minded followers to exchange ideas, possibly brainstorm or maybe even help people that are interested in making their own decorations as well. 

For the record: I am an amateur, I have no formal art schooling but I did take some advance courses in high school (which was way too long ago). I use Pinterest a lot for inspiration and I have found a few other blogs that I like too that I will be sure to link in the sidebar. 

Let the crazy adventure begin!