Daily Archives: November 21, 2017

Project Give Myself a Hand

And then there were two.  That’s right, only two more Haunt tutorials left from our Trail of Tears Haunted Trail.

Project Hand Molding Halloween 2017

Today’s featured tutorial is how the above prop consumed my life for almost an entire year.  It was a well known joke last year that many of my Posey frames were sans hands.  Some of that was just running out of time before the big event and needing to get the Halloween props out on the trail as quick as possible.  To my credit, I did put empty gloves on a few but they admittedly looked pretty hokey.  Where I wanted to be this year was full on hands that not only looked like proper appendages, but were poseable.  As you can tell from the above picture, I was able to accomplish this of sorts.  Problem was it took me about a year to get through the process and ended up costing a lot more than I ever expected it to.  When all was done, I probably could have bought hands off the Internet and been money ahead (ummm no probably there).  The fun is in the journey and I can definitely say I learned a hell of a lot about the molding process.  It all started with this large box of Alja-Safe.  Definitely expensive (this 20lb box cost me ~$140), yet a lot of fun.

Project Hand Molding Halloween 2017

Hit the jump to see how this product comes into play and the rest of the process to make Posey hands.

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Project Witch Replicate

I am beginning to realize where all my time went this year.  I had forgotten just how many new projects went towards this year’s Haunted Trail until I put all the images together in order to make these tutorial posts.  Another thing is perfectly clear, I need to take more pictures during the build phase.  I tend to get wrapped up in the project and forget to snap pictures at key progress points.  This is one of those times.  I’ll have to talk you through some of the interesting design choices – will make it a point to do better for next year’s efforts.  Living in the now, welcome to another Halloween 2017 project.  This one was more of a challenge than a new concept.  I saw a decoration for sale in one of the high end boutique Halloween catalogs.  You know, the ones that have a few unique items if you are willing to mortgage your house.  In this year’s catalog, there was a ring of 6 witches, with light up globe heads.  The cost for that decoration – ~$190.  Of course this was deviously disguised since they showed the ring of 6, but sold them in a set of 3 so it looked half the price. Oddly enough, Oriental Trading Company came out with a similar idea in the $160 range (now on sale for ~$120) again, implying more but sold in 3s.

Witch decoration from Oriental Trading Company

It was a pretty cool decoration, but paying that much for cheaply made props just seems like a complete waste.  The other aspect of this was being fairly tame on the scare side so it could go on the early part of the Haunted Trail.  That side hasn’t been getting much love the last couple of years and wanted to give the younger guests something new.

First task, design a pattern that would limit the amount of wood I needed to buy.  Assuming a 4×8 sheet of underlayment (same wood used for the Zombie Silhouette project link here).  With those dimensions, I could get three patterns out of each side as long as I kept the bases in the 2 foot range with a foot for the head width (2 + 1 + 2 + 1 + 2 on other side).  With those constraints, came up with this pattern.

Project Witch Ring Halloween 2017

Hit the jump to see how this witch project turned out!

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