PerfessorEvil and Mistress Evil

We had a good year.  The weather was cold, and it had rained earlier in the day, but it calmed down for the night.  136 trick-or-treaters, which was down from the year before, but it was really quite cold.

This was my first Monster Mud project.  My favorite moment of the night was when a woman in her 30's came up to the house, walked right past the reaper, and told me how they make a point of coming to our house every year.  Then she turned around, started to walk past the reaper again, and then SCREAMED.  Guess she didn't see it the first time.  

There is a how-to for the reaper here

The old guy in the coffin was made with a Ramses the Great prop mask from Lubatti Designs  The clothing was aged by slicing with a razor blade, and then going over the edges with a blow torch.  Then I took the clothing and put it in a bag with some water and old coffee grounds, and let it sit for a few days.

The coffin was given to me by a neighbor a few years ago, and this year I tore it apart and redesigned it into more of a toe-pincher style.  The lining was put in by taking some satin, and a staple gun.  Fold, staple, fold, staple.  You can see the original coffin here.

My Bucky-Demon also got a facelift for 2003.  I replaced the horns with some I liked better, and added eyes from Van Dykes Taxidermy  (Thanks to a recommendation by Sue McDonald)  The ones I used were the Poppy Slit Reptile Eyes

The how-to for the Bucky-Demon is here

The skull fountain I made this year came out great, but didn't get too much attention where it was.  It probably needs to be a bit closer to the walkway.  The how-to is here

The decapitated football player was meant to be a flailer like Alan did, but as usual, I ran out of time, so it was just static. 

I had the treat bags and glow sticks in the coffin.  At one point, a wave of Trick-or-Treater's had me surrounded, standing in the coffin, handing out treats..  There must have been 25 or 30 of them.  It was like Night of the Living Dead with short people.  This year the treat bags consisted of:

1 glow bracelet

1 good "fun sized" candy bar (chocolate based)

1 Halloween themed pencil or little plastic skeleton

1 tiny toy (mini paratrooper or mini koosh like critter)

1 Halloween themed fake tattoo

3 secondary candies  (Smarties, hard candy, dum dums, etc)

I made 140, and gave out 136.