day of the dead party post

Finally taking a few minutes to post some pictures from the big Halloween/Day of the Dead party this year. I ended up not having much time, so the majority of projects I had planned had to be dropped. But it all turned out fine. I sort of broke the bank buying little calacas and retablos, and maybe got carried away with the prayer candles. But they look so cool!






The Altar
I suppose it's more traditional to honor one person with the altar, but I figured since this was probably the only time I'd be doing this, I picked three. From right to left, my dad who passed way back in 1984, my step father Jack who passed away in 2005, and my (maternal) grandmother Gladys who passed in 2006.

I really enjoyed putting this together. It was fun to try to find and think of things that would be representative of each person, and a few of their favorite things. No real craft projects involved, just stacked boxes and shelves on a folding table, and covered everything with table cloths.







Sugar Skulls
The vast majority of people I know have kids, and since I don't want people to be stressed about getting babysitters, or deal with bored kids, I try to have some fun project for the kids. This year I had the standard craft room in the back of the house, plus Sugar Skulls! My mom came to town for the party, and between the two of us, we made 90 skulls. I think it ended up being about 50 lbs of sugar.

The skulls were a big hit. I ended up with a dozen left, which my brother took to indulge his new-found sugar skull decorating skills. I didn't get a chance to decorate one myself, but the bottom pic is of one my brother made for me. I got the molds from mexicansugarskull.com




Chandeliers
It seems my chandelier plans never work out how I originally planned, but are just as good. I was going to paper mache and paint some folk art style skulls, but never had the time. So I went with the nice chrome spraypaint. Fast and shiny! I had had the skulls from last year - always nice to repurpose. I won't go into how I ended up with not just one, but two skull-shaped disco balls, but they were pretty awesome.





Front Room
This room is definitely more Halloween than Day of the Dead. The frame around the tv didn't quite work out. It was not the right size, and I had wanted it to sit flush inside the frame, but the tilty brace thing made the tv stick out too far. I also didn't have a chance to chop up and resize the frame, so hung it as is. It's alright, but a project for another day. The big fancy gilded frames come from hotel liquidation places down in Vegas. Except for the Giraffe frame - from an antique shop in Salt Lake.

On Halloween I had my Hallowindow dvd playing on a loop - next year I'll try to get it set up so I can project it on a window. It was a big hit with the trick or treaters. During the party I had Three Amigos playing, and in the back room I had Nacho Libre on my other tv. Nonstop fun at my house!

Last year's mad science lab stuff got relegated to the secretary. It was fun to fill the apothecary jars with candy. I'm surprised there's still so much left. The wax bottles in the squat jar went pretty fast though.

The treasure chest was something I'd picked up unfinished from a craft store a few years ago. When they were filming the Imagine Island tv show at work this summer, they needed a treasure chest for one episode, so I offered mine. I used lots of layers of different colors of stain, really rough grit sandpaper, wacked it a few times with a chisel and a hammer. Then I dragged it through the dirt in the back yard, ground some more dirt into it, and basically bashed the thing all over. Lots of fun!





Haunted Mirror
This is a project from last year, but I was never happy with the lights inside, so this year I replaced the lights with some LEDs, and now it's so bright you can see where I glued the skull to the shadowbox. So another step to fix up next year...

It's a super easy project. I picked up the frame on clearance at the local craft store, took out the original mirror, and replaced it with a two-way mirror. Then I made a box out of black foam core, glued a plastic skull to the back of the box, attached some lights to the bottom of the box, and attached all that to the back of the frame. I have a motion sensor, but haven't been able to get it to work yet.

Misc
And the rest are just some miscellaneous photos. I never manage to take pictures during the party, so sorry there aren't really many pictures with people, but you get to see the decorations better. This year I had the bulk of the food brought in from Bajios Mexican Grill. If you live anywhere near one, go now and try it out. Tasty tasty stuff.




We quickly ran out of room inside, so the rest of the food ended up outside. So lucky it didn't rain that night. Also outside I had white pumpkins and markers on all the tables for people to draw on. Some fun pumpkins by the end of the night.


All in all the party was a grand success. Over 100 people came, and it sounds like everyone had a great time. The final answer for the Skull Count Contest (count all the three dimensional skulls in the house - printed skulls don't count) was 189. And finally here's a close-up of one of my favorite acquisitions: Hell is not Hell.


Until next year - Adios!

13 o'clock

I've been so busy with work and freelance, that I haven't been able to do much Halloween preparation. The party is this weekend, so it will be a busy week. So here's a project I've been meaning to do since the first party four years ago: a 13 hour clock. Earlier this summer I stumbled across an old broken grandfather clock, and I figured I could do something with it. I haven't fixed it yet, looks like it will need a whole new clock mechanism, but in the meantime it's perfect for a halloween prop. I took the old face off and replaced it with a simple print-out of a file I put together in Photoshop. I had a little skeleton (which used to be in an old rusty birdcage) which happens to fit perfectly inside, with the chain wrapped around its neck all noose-like.

Btw, that's a real cuckoo bird sitting on top - another thing I'm not quite sure what to do with yet. Next up: spray painting skulls silver!

lotsa lotta calacas

I suppose recognizing you have a problem is the first step, but I just really really need more of these little skeletons dudes. I've been having fun scouring the internet for them. I found a lot of them (and all my sugar skull supplies) at
MexicanSugarSkull.com


I've at least tried to keep to some sort of budget, which has precluded some of the really great things I've found. I would really love a large Peruvian retablo (like example above) - but I figure it might be nice to save some money for food at the party.
Great retablos by the Jimenez Family
I would also love a giant arbol de la vida (tree of life). There are some pretty amazing ones out there. If I have time, I might try making a simple one.
The Soteno Trees of Life

Halloween 2008, or rather, Dia de los Muertos 2008

I'm a little late getting started with the planning for this year's big Halloween party. I wasn't sure I was even going to have a party this year - too many things going on. But when a friend pointed out that I should have the party on Nov 1, I realized it could be a Day of the Dead party instead. That was pretty much all the inspiration I needed and for the past couple weeks have been having a great time searching for all things Day of the Dead.

Top picture - Started to pick up misc decorations. Gotta have lots of marigolds and calacas (those cool little skeleton dudes). I'll be building a huge ofrenda (altar), and my philosophy there is more is more.

2nd picture - I dug deep into the depths of my storage shed to find an old puppet theater I built maybe 10 or so years ago. Depending on my time, I want to turn it into a big eleaborate nicho, and fill it with happy calacas. It's actually in better shape than I thought it would be. I didn't remember the curtain. Probably have to take that out.

Last picture - Results of failed craft experiment. I had some of these foam skulls, so I painted two with gesso and started putting patterns on one. I think instead I'm going to cover the skulls with paper mache. I want to fill in the eye and nose holes a bit, and make the shape a little more stylized.

So that's the start. I'll post here and there over the next two months as I manage to squeeze in a little craft time.

Some more halloween

One of the eyeball projects. I picked up a fake plant at the craft store that was on clearance, and went to town with the glue gun. Gotta love the glue gun.

It doesn't show up in the photo, but I had a fish tank pump hooked up to the chemistry stuff. It made bubbles, but didn't really have that dramatic of an effect.

And finally, my great grandfather's secretary, turned into a cabinet of skulls. My aunts were shocked. :-)

Halloween Extravaganza #4: The Great Pumpkin Party

The big Halloween event has come and gone. It was a blast and a bit crazy - and so lucky it was a beautiful day so we could have tables set up outside. My little house just can't handle 75 people all at once! As always, desperate scrambling was going on to get it all together in time, but I think everyone had a good time. I'm pretty happy with how it all turned out.


This is the pumpkin innards chandelier. It's not at all what I was originally imagining, but I really like how it turned out. I hung an orange rope light around the perimeter of the room, then hung orange streamers from the rope light to the hanging light fixture that was already there. I added some curly ribbon, and some paper mache giant pumpkin seeds. Hanging all those streamers was not fun, but definitely worth it.

More pics of the individual projects coming soon... after I finish recovering!

Sir Pongo Zarafa

Finally finished the giraffe painting! I could easily spend hours and hours fussing with it, but it was done enough for the party. Final size 24x31 - luckily Kinko's does fast oversize printing. I'm excited to see it in its fancy frame. Too bad I don't have a mantle over which to hang it.

Vampire Emergency

Less than a week until the big Halloween Party... and I'm finally starting to get some of my projects done. Today I finished up the Vampire Emergency Kit, and framed many eyeballs in a fancy gilded frame. Both have problems I'd like to fix, but since the clock is ticking... good enough for now!

Next up - gotta finish that giraffe!

sneak peak

Just a few short hours until October and then Halloween preparations will begin in earnest! Actually, between work and freelance, haven't gotten that much done. So far I've mostly been sorting through all the accumulated knick knacks and slowly setting up the mad science lab shelves. Above are a couple teaser shots of the unfinished lab.

I C U

A couple months ago I decided I had to have some glass eyes. I didn't really have an agenda for them, but thought it was a must-have for a mad science lab. Sadly, glass eyes are a bit pricey. I asked my mom if she knew of any special secret places for nice but cheap doll eyes, as she is a porcelain doll maker. She couldn't find anything cheaper than I had, but checked with her teacher at her doll class. Her teacher offered several pair of eyes she said she wasn't going to use, and another woman who owns a doll supply store offered any damaged or mismatched eyes from her inventory.

So all in all, I ended up with about 52 pairs of eyes - for free! Thanks Katha and Coleen! I have a few ideas for them.

In other Halloween-ness, I'm actually having a small window of opportunity where I'm waiting for feedback on my freelance jobs, and the day job is pretty much caught up! I'm hoping to get a lot done this week by way of getting everything set up for starting all of my projects for this year's party. I've also been working a bit here and there on the tuxedo'd giraffe painting. I've decided painting drapery is so not my thing. But it will be cool. I have a really beautiful frame to put it in - a quite over-the-top gilt frame - well, at least as over-the-top as I could afford.

Only 6 1/2 weeks until the party!

Jackalope!

So maybe this is a sign that the obsession has gotten a little out of control...

The CEO of the company where I work was out of town last week. Friday morning she called to say she's in Jackson, WY and has found a bunch of really nice Jackalopes, and would I like for her to pick one up for me? So of course I said, "Yes!" She brought it to the office this morning, and I thought it was all very thoughtful. She and her husband got a big kick out of picking it out for me. But also made me realize: I really need to remember to have a few non-halloween related conversations from time to time!

The Addams' Giraffe Friend

Here is a project high up on the priority list. This painting is from the set of the tv show version of the Addams Family. For whatever reason, I think it would be terribly fabulous to have this painting in my house. I've been on the hunt for frames before I start painting my own copy. I had a little bit of luck at a Hotel Liquidation Warehouse down in Las Vegas. I picked up a couple great frames for some other projects, but none were big enough for the Giraffe. So... still hunting.

Now with Lasers!

A few weeks ago I decided I needed a laser. I found one for "such a deal" on eBay, and was anxiously awaiting its epic-ness. Well... it arrived. And it wasn't anywhere near epic. I guess I should have realized my dreams of a Pink Floyd concert-like experience in my front room were a bit far-fetched. That big black shoebox looking thing in the top picture is a fog machine. I thought the fog would make it more epic, but whatever the fog juice stuff is, it gave me a headache. I'm thinking it's probably not wise to have that thing going in a small room.

So I got an ultrasonic mist maker, thinking that would surely make my laser more epic. That white bowl has the mistmaker in it. The mist looks cool, but stays pretty localized in its bowl of water. It's also pretty messy and splashes all over, so I'm thinking that's not going to work too well in the mad lab either. But it'll be nice in a cauldron or something.

Anyway, above is my little laser lab of fun currently residing on my dining room table. I've got the laser pointing at a chrome ball inside a glass dome. It's been fun to point the laser at things even if it really isn't all that epic.

Taxidermy Fun

So you've seen the Two-headed Goose. I've commissioned a Flying Squirrel. (As in, a normal squirrel with bird wings.) One of the things I learned during my internship with Master Guarnaccia was that you have to have at least three things for it to be a collection. (Powerful words to live by.) I can't figure out what my third "unusual" bit of taxidermy should be. My nephew insists I need a Jackalope, but that seems so... um.. cliche. Any ideas? I had thought of a deer mouse.. hmmmm.

Above is Don Seegmiller's stuffed Raven he let me borrow for last year's party. He wisely took it home as I covet it. I'd love a Raven, but that doesn't really fit the theme... oh decisions.

Hard life I live, eh?

Humble beginnings - 2004

I had only been moved in for less than two months, but the main order of business was my first ever Halloween party. A bit simple, but not bad for starting from scratch. You can even see the humble beginnings of the mad science lab behind Billy Bob pals Bill and Lorien. Sorry for the blurry pics - but they are the only ones I have. I kinda forget to take pictures while playing hostess.