Haunted Artifact Prop

     The year before last, Brian and I had a plant pot outdoors that shattered during the course of the winter.  Rather than clean up the shards, I decided to incorporate them into my Halloween decor.  Unfortunately I was really busy last fall, so the prop was thrown together last minute, but I'm hoping to bring it back this year for my party.  All you need for this setup is broken pottery and a museum-style sign with some kind of legend explaining what will go wrong if said pottery breaks.  I made up a culture and legend (included below), but you can use whatever lore you would like to.

Legend

Ajegwan Burial Urn, ca. 500 CE

Urn is believed to contain the remains of Sjan Vlavec, 395-503 CE.  Known by her subjects as the "Queen of Death," Vlavec ascended to the throne at 15.  Her elder cousin and childhood confidante (his name is unknown, as Vlavec made sure all references to him were destroyed) was second in line for the throne and he devised a plan to assassinate her.  When his plot failed, she ordered her ladies' maids to tie him up and throw him into a nearby river, which was teeming with crocodiles.  After his betrayal, she became increasingly mistrustful of those around her and would have her maids execute anyone she felt had wronged her.  Contemporaries estimate her death toll at upwards of 2,000.  Toward the end of her life, she became convinced that someone was poisoning her and vowed that upon her death, she would return and kill every last person on earth.  Upon her death, a local sorceress bound her soul to the urn in which her remains were placed.  It is rumored that if her urn is ever broken, her soul will return to annihilate humanity.

Haunted artifact in my Halloween cemetery, Halloween 2018.

Materials:

*Broken pottery
*Printed legend
*Laminator
*Long wooden stake
*All purpose adhesive

Directions:

*Print and laminate legend.

*Glue legend to the wooden stake.

*Place the wooden stake in the ground.  Surround the stake by pottery shards.

Room 217 Passkey

     As some of you may know if you've been following my blog for a while, my favorite movie is Stephen King's The Shining.  No, not the Stanley Kubrick film.  The made-for-TV miniseries that basically no one likes except for the Master of Horror himself and me.  Each year for Halloween, I decorate the bathroom as room 217 (see, e.g., Halloween 2018) and last year I decided to add the stolen passkey into the mix.  I tried to design mine to be reasonably close to the one featured in the miniseries adaptation of The Shining.  However, if you like Kubrick's adaptation better, you could easily mimic the passkey from his film instead.

The stolen passkey on the sink in "room 217."

Materials:

*Skeleton key

*Cream colored cardstock

*Color printer or brown marker (I used my Silhouette CAMEO to cut the "2" from the cream colored cardstock and added brown cardstock in behind, but printing or drawing on the "2" would be faster and easier).

*Hole punch

*Key ring

Directions:

*Print the number 2 onto a sheet of cream colored cardstock.  (If you're drawing on the number with a marker, you can wait to add the "2" until after you've cut out the diamond shape.)

*Cut out a rounded diamond shape with the "2" at its center, using the template below.

*Punch a hole in the top of the passkey and attach the skeleton key to the passkey using a key ring.

Radiation Hazard Printable Sign

     If you've looked at my party pics from my recent Halloween parties (see Halloween 2017 and Halloween 2018), you may have noticed my radiation hazard sign on my fridge.  I actually made mine using my Silhouette CAMEO, but since Blogger doesn't make it easy to add SVG files to posts and since I imagine most of my readers don't have die cutting machines at home, I've turned it into a printable sign.  I made it in Paint, so it is a little pixelated if you print it at a large size.  However, if you have a better photo editing program which allows you to smooth the edges, that will probably fix the issue.  This sign could be a great addition to a Halloween zombie or science lab setup.

Materials:

*White cardstock
*Color printer
*Laminator (optional)

Directions:

*Print the sign out onto a sheet of white cardstock.
*Laminate if you wish.

Hot Glue Alien Parasite Specimen

     This hot glue alien parasite is easy and inexpensive to make, and is the perfect addition to a Halloween specimen collection.  Although I didn't use this for my X-Files party, it reminds me a little of the alien parasite in the X-Files episode "Ice."  You could also fill the vial with a colored liquid to make it look like you've embalmed the specimen, but I'm not sure if that would adversely affect your parasite if you want to reuse it for future years.

Materials:

*Hot glue and glue gun
*Vial
*Fine tipped black marker
*Label (see this post for creating potion labels)
*Thread

Directions:

*Apply some hot glue to the bottom of the vial's cork and create a line of hot glue going downward.  Make sure that the line of hot glue is still short enough to fit inside the vial.  Let harden.

*Once the hot glue has solidified, you can peel the parasite from the cork or leave it hanging from the cork, whichever way you like.

*Add a couple of eyes to the parasite using a fine tipped marker

*Close the parasite inside the vial.

*Tie a specimen label around the parasite vial.

X-Files Darkness Falls Cocooned Skeleton

     Welcome to the final X-Files Darkness Falls post.  Even if you're not planning on hosting an X-Files themed party, you can string up one of these cocoons in your yard as part of your Halloween decor.  Instead of little green mites, perhaps your skeleton was the victim of a giant spider.  Use your imagination, and have fun!

Materials:

*Plastic skeleton or bones
*Light colored "creepy" cloth (large mesh cheesecloth-like cloth sold at, e.g., Dollar Tree)
*Clear elastic cording
*Fake spider webbing
*Scissors

Directions:

*Lay your skeleton or bones on the "creepy" cloth.  If you're working with loose bones, like I was, the bones may move around a bit as you're making this, so you may have to shift them around a few times.

*String the clear elastic through the edges of the cloth, slowly pulling the edges together.  Creepy cloth tends to come as a rectangular sheet, which means that when you pull the edges together, you may get some uneven bunching at the top, which you can see a little bit in my pictures.  I didn't think it was that much of a detraction, and if you have a tree way above eye level that you can hang it from, the bunching probably won't be noticeable.

*Tie the cording to hold the edges of the cloth together.  Make sure the ends of the cording are long enough to tie around a tree branch or whatever you would like to hang your cocoon from.

*Pull spider webbing across the cocoon to give it a more web-like appearance.  Use as much or as little spider webbing as you like.

X-Files Darkness Falls Little Green Bugs

     An X-Files Darkness Falls party would hardly be complete without some little green mites crawling around.  Removable vinyl makes it possible to stick a lot of these little buggers to your wall and remove them easily once you're done.  If you keep the non-stick sheet you cut them on, you may be able to store them and reuse them for a future party.

Materials:

*Removable vinyl in lime green

*Silhouette CAMEO or other die cutter (could potentially be done by hand, but I would not recommend)

Directions:

*Import this little green bug template into your Silhouette or other die cutting machine's software program.

*"Trace" the template following the directions for your machine's software program.  If you have a Silhouette CAMEO, you can check out this post for some info on how to create a cut file from a template.

*Create many, many copies of the bugs, as many as you can comfortably fit on a 12"x12" sheet of vinyl.

*Place a 12"x12" square of removable vinyl on your cutting mat in accordance with the directions on the package.

*Load the vinyl into your cutting machine and cut using the vinyl settings.

*Peel bugs off the cutting mat and stick to your wall.

*Once you're done with the bugs, they should peel up off the wall fairly easily.  They may stick a bit to other surfaces, however.  For example, I also put some on the TV, and those ones were a bit more challenging to remove.  You may want to place one down and peel it up as a test to make sure that it peels off easily enough for your liking.

Horror Pocket Pals Elm Street Sign and Play Set Box

     Hey everyone, I hope you've been enjoying my Horror Pocket Pals series.  This portion of the project was a fairly big undertaking for me.  I've never really focused on honing my drawing skills, but when I decided that I wanted an image of the nightmare house as part of the play set, I thought that drawing it was probably the best option.  That way it would be something that was uniquely mine.  It took a fair amount of time and effort, and it's far from perfect, but I'm pretty pleased with the results.  I opted to draw the house as it's depicted in the original movie, so that's why the door is blue instead of red.  I've included a scan of the uncolored sketch as well as the colored final project so that if you want to modify it a bit for your project, you can.  If you haven't already seen my Nightmare on Elm Street plushies, you'll find Freddy here and Nancy here.
     This post will probably be the last one in my Horror Pocket Pals series for at least a little while, but don't worry.  I have plenty more spooky treats I'm planning :).

Elm Street Sign

Materials:

*Green felt
*Wooden skewer or thin dowel
*Gray paint
*White embroidery floss or thread
*Sewing needle
*Scissors
*All purpose adhesive

Directions:

*Cut out two identical small rectangles from green felt.

*Embroider the words "Elm St." on both rectangles, as well as a white border around the rectangles.

*Cut the dowel to size, if necessary, and paint gray.  Let dry.

*Once dry, glue the embroidered felt rectangles to the top of the sign.

Play Set Box

To construct the box, you'll want to follow the directions given in the Michael Myers plushie box tutorial, with some modifications to accommodate two plushies and the Elm Street sign.  Instead of a poster, however, you'll want to include an image of 1428 Elm, given below: