Lowe's Halloween 2024

Lowe's started putting out some of their Halloween decorations. The skeleton in the antique deep sea diving suit is really cool and unique looking, but the $349 price tag is a bit steep!

Outdoor LED Black Lights

We have a variety of outdoor rated LED black lights (12W spot, 27W array, and 50W flood) and had to determine which ones to use and where for lighting our "Ghostly Blue Glowing Skeletons" in this year's haunt. The 12W spot lights take up very little real estate but are also magnitudes weaker in the amount of glow they produce with the UV-Effect spray painted skeletons. Our 27W low profile array style lights (used for the test photos posted previously on this blog) required 18 inch long boards for mounting bases and took up too much jack-o-lantern real estate along our front walkway. Two of our 50W floods packed more punch than three of the 27W arrays and only required 9 inch long boards for mounting. We'll use three of the 27W arrays for the skeletons that will go around our maple tree in the front yard. The 50W bases will be painted matte gray or brown and the 27W bases will be painted matte forest green to blend in with the lawn.

Ghostly Blue Skeleton Props Get A Done Stamp!

A grand total of 6 of these custom painted skeletons have been made for this year's haunt.

Ghostly Blue Skeleton Prop Modification

Finally got around to making a prototype "Ghostly Blue" glowing skeleton. The prototype currently is a coat of matte white spray paint over your common 5' tall skeleton prop with an initial coat of Montana Cans UV-Effect transparent spray paint over the white spray paint. We only used half a can of the UV-Effect spray paint and still need to put on a second coat for a more intense effect under black light, but we're getting precisely the effect we wanted for this year's haunt. In daylight, it's your typical bone colored skeleton. We included a side by side photo of a "before" skeleton with the prototype "after" painted skeleton for comparison.

Victorian Madam Morticia Plaque

We got this plaque this past December for only $26 on Amazon in anticipation of this year's Haunted Mansion inspired ghost themed yard haunt. We weren't sure if we were going to display it in the bookcase prop on our front porch for Halloween, but it really pops on our aedicula prop! It may have been the last one available because it's currently unavailable on Amazon. We have learned over the years that if you see something special or unique for Halloween snag it ASAP because a lot of Halloween decorations, props, masks, etc. are produced in limited run batches and you may never see such items available ever again.

Halloween Candy Humor

With Halloween only 4 months away we thought it would be fun to share this really funny bit by Matt Mitchell.

Front Porch "Barricade" 2024 Upgrade Plans

The 2020 pandemic created a bit of serendipity when we crafted a "social distancing/treat bag self serve" fabric covered wooden barricade frame for our front porch that Halloween. Our small front porch entry at this house had become problematic on Halloween night once we had a storm door that opened outward installed. Trick-or-treaters would create a bottleneck as they all clambered on our front porch to get their treats and would then have to all step backwards for us to open the storm door (we often have Halloween nights in the upper 30s to low 40s). The porch barricade put an end to the bottleneck and allowed us to utilize more of our small front porch for our haunt display and has since become a permanent addition to our haunt. For our 2024 Haunted Mansion inspired "Ghost" themed haunt we wanted to embellish the barricade with wood panel details. We've started working on some of the design elements using materials left over/unused from our 2022 porch bookcase and 2023 aedicula prop builds. The porch barricade upgrade should be completed by later this summer.