Artisan Works Nightmare Before Christmas Market

We went to the Nightmare Before Christmas Market at Artisan Works in Rochester, NY today. Artisan Works is a renovated factory building event space that houses multidisciplinary works of art. In the spirit of The Nightmare Before Christmas, you had to choose whether to enter the Christmas Town door or the Halloween Town door (two separate buildings). On the Halloween side we got to meet The Smell Of Fear Candle Company owner from Buffalo, NY in person for the first time today. She's been making custom scented candles for our haunt jack-o-lanterns since 2021.

Are You Ready For Krampusnacht 2023?

One of our favorite Christmas/Holiday scents from The Smell Of Fear Candle Co.

Best Halloween Yard Haunt Ever

We had 119 trick-or-treaters tonight, a new record with this being our 14th Halloween at this house. And that's despite it being only 37 degrees out with sporadic showers this evening. We got more compliments than ever. The Smell Of Fear Candle Co. custom poured "Bananas Foster" scented candles in our jack-o-lanterns were also a huge success. People said they could smell the candles from the bottom of our driveway (which is roughly 60 feet from the house). Interestingly, most trick-or-treaters thought our theme was "Coraline" and not "Voodoo" or "Haunted Bayou", but we love the works of Neil Gaiman (The Sandman, Good Omens), so we'll take it! We have 500+ photos to sort through, so it's going to take a bit before we get them posted on Flickr, but they are coming. Keep checking our Instagram as well for some of this year's haunt photos. This was our best Halloween yard haunt ever!

Smell Of Fear Candle Company October Additions

Had to order both of these new scents from The Smell Of Fear Candle Company as soon as they were released earlier this month. Don't know which one we like more, they're both fantastic smelling! The Pumpkin Innards smells like pumpkin pie and looks beautiful. Spooky Season is similar but leans toward candy apples/apple pie. Both have potential for being our custom candles for our Halloween 2024 haunt jack-o-lanterns!

The Smell Of Fear Candle Company

We love the candles from The Smell of Fear Candle Company so much that we get custom candles orders from them to be used in our jack-o-lanterns (Bananas Foster scented candles for our Haunted Bayou haunt this year). But we also love the candles year round to be used in our home, so had to order another "The Rules of Halloween" Apple Cider Donuts candle for October!

Smell Of Fear Candle Company

Just received our recent order of candles from The Smell Of Fear Candle Company. The purple, green, and white "Sinister Skull" is just gorgeous to look at and its "carnival treats" scent is delectable. We think the skull candle is going to be on display in the "swamp witch's cupboard" on Halloween night. We've been using The Smell Of Fear Candle Company's scented candles in all of our haunt jack-o-lanterns since 2021. Our 2023 haunt scent is "Bananas Foster" in honor of our "Haunted Bayou" theme. We love the fabulous scents of these candles so much that we're already thinking about our next custom order for our 2024 haunt!

2023 Haunt Jack-O-Lantern Candles

We just recently received our custom order of Bananas Foster scented candles from The Smell Of Fear Candle Company for this year's Haunted Bayou yard haunt theme. Last year's Caramel Buttered Popcorn candles were a huge success, as well as 2021's Smoky Cinnamon Whisky candles. We love to make our annual Halloween yard haunt display a multisensory experience.

Halloween 2022 Postmortem

Another Halloween is in the books. We had ~ 116 trick-or-treaters, which sets a new record for our 13th Halloween at this house. Other than a brief shower that lasted only for a few minutes a little after 7 PM, the weather pretty much cooperated by staying in the low 50's last night. We're still waiting for a "perfect" Halloween one of these years. Sadly, we always seem to get that "perfect" night a few days or a week before Halloween, never on Halloween. 

Based on trick-or-treater and parent reactions, the real stars of this year's haunt were the jack-o-lanterns and our custom scented "Caramel Buttered Popcorn" candles from The Smell of Fear Candle Company. We got more specific complements on the jack-o-lanterns and the fantastic smelling candles than anything else in the haunt. All in all we were happy with how the haunt turned out, but now comes the "fun" part of getting everything in the haunt taken down and put away in the garage or basement. Going to be taking a long needed break for a while from Halloween and the blog. We'll see if we have anything left in us for Creepmas 2022. 

Please follow our Instagram page, we'll be posting more photos throughout the coming days, weeks, and months from this year's haunt and prior year's haunts!

Our 2022 Haunt Theme In Candles

The Smell Of Fear Candle Company posted this photo recently and those are the precisely the four standing/sitting full sized prop characters we'll be featuring in our yard haunt this coming Halloween. The Smell of Fear Candle Company made our custom "Caramel Buttered Popcorn" scented 4oz candles that we will be using in our jack-o-lanterns this year. Check out their Facebook page for all the interesting unique horror themed candle scents they release on a monthly basis here: https://www.facebook.com/thesmelloffear7

The Smell Of Fear Candle Company

We've received our custom order of "Caramel Buttered Popcorn" scented 4oz candles for the 2022 haunt's jack-o-lanterns from The Smell Of Fear Candle Company and they smell "DELICIOUS!" The candle scent will compliment our "Classic Horror Movie Monsters" theme. We find the 4oz small jar candles are the perfect size for jack-o-lanterns.

New Year, New Halloween

Happy New Year!
We've started getting things in motion for this year by placing a custom scented candle order with The Smell Of Fear Candle Co. for our 2022 jack-o-lanterns. And we already have things to look forward to seeing for Halloween 2022, like the newest prop creation from The Attic Hatch Yard Haunt this year, the "VerMonsters":

Pumpkins For Jack-O-Lanterns

We're heading into the final stretch with only 1 week to go before it's Halloween. We've got 14 pumpkins to carve into jack-o-lanterns later this week and will see whether Friday or Saturday will be the best day to set up the haunt weather wise. For our jack-o-lanterns this year we have custom "Smoky Cinnamon Whisky" scented 4 oz candles made for us by The Smell Of Fear Candle Co, based off of their "Keeper Of Hell" cinnamon whisky candle. We loved the smell of that candle for the haunt, but asked for the addition of a wood fire smoke scent. The sights, sounds, and smells of our haunt this year are really going to be something special, rain or shine.

Our 2021 Haunt Theme?

We're already prepping for our Halloween 2021 haunt. We even commissioned an order of custom scented candles from The Smell Of Fear Candle Company for the jack-o-lanterns this year. Can you guess this year's haunt theme?