The New-to-Me Home

I've had a couple of people email me and ask about the new house.  Above is the view of the lake from my dock.  Sunrises are beautiful, sunsets aren't as viewable because I live on the south side of the lake and the trees block it a bit.  

Below is the walk through the woods along the boardwalk to the dock.  Blessed with beautiful cypress trees loaded with lots of spanish moss.  This is a perfect scene for an old witchy lady.  I've become somewhat feral living out here, not leaving much except to go to work or see my kids or granddaughter.  Hell, most of the time, I go for days without brushing my hair or wearing makeup.  It's nice not feeling like I have to keep appearances up for the area I live in.

My front yard is also HUGE, with lots of big oak and maple trees.  This yard is a haunter's dream.

That's it for now.  Happy October!!

👻

 

The Rot is back, baby!

 Listen, if you've been living under a rock and weren't aware - Pumpkinrot is back.  Actually, he was back last year, and he brought the spirit with him.  Haxan was amazing, as we would expect.  Cannot wait to see what is in store for 2025's haunt season.

Head over to insta to check out the teaser!!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPQsX2wjZwZ/?igsh=MTVzNHZrODRreHFlMQ==

Sorry I've been MIA...

 Sooooooo... I left the Dead End.  

I moved in August 2023.  I sold my house, bought a fixer-upper on a lake, gave away all of my Halloween props to a fellow Florida Haunter, got rid of 75% of my other possessions, and moved to the country!

What does this mean for the future of my Halloween obsession?

Wellllllll...  the truth is....

I don't know.  The house is the epitome of an actual haunted house, as in it's a wreck because my renovation has been stalled for over a year.  

The good thing is, the dirt road I live on is a dead end, so no rebranding will be needed, even though I don't live at the end of the street.  I don't have an HOA, so I don't have any restrictions on what I can do in my yard.

The drawback is that I live an hour at the least from everyone else in my circles, so no more parties.  Plus, I live in the country on an out-of-the-way road, with basically no traffic except the people who live here and ZERO trick-or-treaters, so not many people would even see my work.

BUT!

I do feel the need to create again, even though I should be worrying more about getting the house done.  

So, who knows what will happen.  I will be trying to at least post more, probably throwing shout-outs to other haunters that I admire.  

In the meantime, I jumped on the Drawlloween wagon (4 days late, yes)and sketched with an ink pen in one of my notebooks.  It's a horrible sketch, for sure.  Ink pen is not what I would normally use as it's not forgiving at all, but it is what it is.  (Warning: it's bad, like a 5 year old drew it bad.)

Heads-up

And then, for shits 'n giggles, I asked ChatGTP to render it into a cartoon image.  LOVE it!

Basically, it's the headless horseman on the hill in the background, and they're using his head as the volleyball.

Anyway, figured I'd update in case anyone was wondering what happened and why I haven't posted in a couple of years.  It's been a challenging two years, but I'm happy, and I am living my dream of living on a LAKE!  With my own dock! 

 That said, I'm gonna go look through my art supplies.  Happy October, my spooky friends! 

Alright, alright.... 2022 Pics are UP!

 So, my favorite coworker mentioned something about the website not being updated with last year's pictures.  So, tonight, I transferred the ones I could find, resized, uploaded and got most of them on the website.  Link is on the left on the navigation pane, marked 2022.  I have to find the memory card from my actual camera to get the decorations photos, but not much has changed since previous years.  Mostly I have party pics up.  

Happy New Year! (Yeah, I'm late and it's February...)

It's been a busy few months, and things are finally winding down at work so that I can actually spend time catching up on the rest of the things I need to do.  I just came back from a much-needed short cruise, and am ready for the springtime and all the fun stuff that goes with sunshine and warm weather.

 The 2022 party was a HUGE success!  I believe a great time was had by all, including me.  I will be posting up the photos from the party and from Halloween night over the next couple of days.  

One week until the party

 Only one week to go, and it's been one setback after another, keeping me from getting anything done.  The invitations got scrapped after many issues with paper, ink, and just a lot of wasted time trying to get them done.  I ended up bringing back a revised version of a ticket-style I used several years ago that was simple, and I got them cranked out in 4 hours.  

Work has been taking a lot of time, overtime every day and working on the weekend, and leaving me physically and mentally exhausted.  I ended up passing out as soon as I got home yesterday and lost another whole evening.  Two main components of my costume haven't even shipped yet, I ordered them in September!  I had to hit Amazon and make an emergency backup order for something else that will work for what I already have.  Then my phone decided to kick the bucket today, causing more time loss and sheer frustration, and the replacement doesn't come until Wednesday at the earliest ... and to top THAT off.... the PVC pipe to the hall bathroom toilet busted like 30 minutes after I let go of the frustration over my phone.  Water everywhere.  I feel like the Universe is trying to prevent me from having this party this year!

Tomorrow is a new day, a whole day off to be productive and get things done.  I refuse to get stuck on the frustrated feelings.  Just gonna roll with the setbacks, conquer each challenge as it arises, and WIN the battle to have the party that hasn't happened for 4 years.  The show must go on!!

And now, ear plugs, Unisom, and sleep.....

Less than two weeks!!

 This weekend, I got the invitations mostly done with the help of my daughter, Taylor and my buddy, Zeke.  Yes, I'm very late on those, but Facebook and word on mouth already has people informed.  Today, my son, Brandon, came over and we got the bulk of the cemetery set up in just over 2 hours, which is a record for us.  

The remainder of my Sunday will be eating a huge bowl of homemade chili, watching a Halloween movie, and getting the invites ready to hand out.

Happy First of October!

 

It's that time of year!

 Greetings, foolish mortals!  

I'm back in the spirit, and ready to get down to Halloween.  This has been a really hard year, with a lot of personal issues and major depression early this year, but I'm out of the darkness in my head, happy again, and ready for some good times and fun.  

I had some website downtime due to moving to a new web host, but that should all be resolved now.  If anyone notices any missing photos or links not working, please shoot me an email to let me know!   

Hurricane Ian came by and visited us yesterday, and thankfully didn't stay long or trash the place, so I spent the day cleaning the garage up a bit so I can start pulling my Halloween totes and bodies out of the attic.  Today, the last day of September, I'm hoping to get them all down and start going through everything so I can get to decorating the inside of the house for the PARTY!!!!  I am not letting anything stop me this year from doing what I do best, creating a fun, haunted atmosphere for my friends and family to join me in celebrating the very best season of the year.  

Unfortunately, my work schedule is probably going to cut into my time as we are gearing up for our new system and workflow, plus finishing up the move to the new warehouse, and I won't get anything new done, but who needs sleep anyway?

I'm ready for this Halloween.  Stay tuned!

The Halloween from Hell

Halloween 2021 was supposed to be my great comeback with tons of prepwork completed to my house to get it back in shape for company.  Instead, it was a lame and pitiful showing of last minute "throw it out in the yard" BS, with no party despite all my hard work, and the entire month of October was just a giant cesspool of depression.

Halloween 2022 WILL be the year.  It WILL, not matter what.  I NEED this.

The display for this year can be found here:

http://theghostess.com/2021.htm

The Dead End 2021, I hope

 Spent the day working on the rough draft for my party invitations for this year.  Unfortunately, I had to scrap my original plan of voodoo dolls/poppets because I ran out of patience and mojo for making those incredibly time-consuming and tedious monstrosities.  Instead, I am revamping a previous version of an invite I've done before.  It's one of my favorites, fun to make, and most of the people we will be inviting this year have never seen them, so it will be fresh for them.  

The computer part of this is the worst.  I hate being stuck on the computer.

Most of the planned house projects and repairs are nearing completion soon, so I can get rolling in earnest on Halloween fun.

What to do when you have to stay off your feet?

Arts & "crafts" for the win!  

Managed to injure my foot doing yard work a couple of weekends ago, and it's steadily gotten worse, so this weekend (my weekends are currently 3 days long) I decided to work on some prototypes for this year's shenanigans.  Wrapping wooden beads is hard.  That is all.

 

Halloween 2020

 So, I didn't make it in time with Goliath.  He made it out to the display, but he isn't Goliath, he's a faceless winged demon looking thing with a monochromatic greenish gray paint job.  Bird Girl also didn't get done, but I put a red spot on her and she was fine.  We had a decent turnout for our culdesac considering the circumstances of the world these days.  We had about 50 kids come by.  Pictures on the left in the navigation pane on the website, under 2020.  

Or, click here:  http://theghostess.com/2020.htm

Will I make it in time??!!??

 I'm getting closer, but I am afraid that I won't finish Goliath in time!  I scored a day off today, and worked on Goliath for most of the day so far.  I have 2 fans on him right now trying to aid in the drying time.  Once he's fully dry, I can sand him down some and get his head and hair done.  I'll probably get his loin cloth done today too.  I am getting ready to start on the wings now, but here is the progress so far:

10 Days!

 There are only 10 days left until Halloween.  Gotta admit, I'm feeling the time crunch now.  Goliath is no where near complete, Bird Girl still needs to be painted, and this whole "work" thing is getting in my way!!  I did take Sunday off from projects to work in the front yard trimming trees and bushes and stuff, getting it ready for the cemetery to go up next weekend.

I finally got started using the paper clay on Goliath now.  I covered his legs, giving him better shape and smoothing out the strips over the duct tape.  It'll take a couple of days to dry thoroughly, even though I tried not to make it too thick.  I had to make a new page for the progress of this project as the first page is getting really long and I don't want the pages to take forever to load.  The link to the second page is on the bottom of Page 1.  :-)

Stiltbeast Studios

 If y'all wanna learn how to do some cool stuff, check out Allen Hopps over at Stiltbeast Studios on their Youtube channel!  Good stuff, and entertaining!  He's got some great videos on how to make cool Halloween props very simply and VERY cost-effectively.  Check it out!

StiltbeastStudios

Hump Day! Goliath V.2 progress

 Worked on getting that important base layer of strip mache on top of most of the duct tape.  Now I can see better what I'm working with and my future mache clay has something better to stick to.  Good times!

Goliath is looking like something finally!

 Got a lot of the "fleshing out" part done, and he has a head now!

Follow the progress here:

http://theghostess.com/goliathV2.htm

Goliath V.2 Progress Sunday, October 11

 

So, it's moving along.  I have the frame done and attached to the base, and I have the duct tape top and bottom on and am trying to get it stuffed tonight.  It doesn't look like much now, but he will be magnificent when he is done!

Progress on Goliath as of Friday, October 9

This evening, I finally have been able to get back to work on Goliath.  We finished up the duct tape part  and picked up a couple of supplies yesterday, and today I took measurements for the frame and got started on that part.  I ordered a couple of male wig heads off Amazon that should be here tomorrow or Sunday for this project and another one I have in mind later for next year. 

Here's my progress so far:  Goliath V.2

Happy weekend!!