Grim Greenery

We think our 2023 "Swamp Skeletons" may have inspired these 2026 Target "Grim Greenery" Skeletons (currently only available online). Our swamp skeletons were actually older Target pose-n-stay skeletons that we painted with an array of Rustoleum camouflage color matte spray paints, installed battery powered red LED lights behind red Fender amp jewel dome power indicator light covers for eyes, and draped with creepy clothe. But, as we've learned over the years, spray painting these plastic skeletons turns the plastic extremely brittle, it's their last hurrah so to speak, and sadly are "nevermore". But we liked the look of these Target Grim Greenery skeletons so much that we ordered a few to some day use in a haunt! We're always curating props that catch our eye for future haunt themes. We even picked up a few items at At Home the other weekend after seeing Pumkinrot's post for inside our house and for this year's haunt.

Bring Out Your Skeletons

Starting to slowly set up the haunt outside in phases before the big push the final week of October. Started bringing out some new skeletons that will be strategically placed throughout the yard. These skeletons have light up red LED eyes but unfortunately don't have timers, so we won't be turning their eyes on until Halloween. These skeletons while poseable, are incapable of standing up freely on their own, so we used modular screw together pole piece black shepherd's hooks (minus the hook ends) with 5 prong ground stake ends to zip tie the skeletons to. 

Ghostly Lighting

We already had to repair the 10+ year old hanging skeleton bride and groom prop we forgot all about and never used before. After barely a week it was found lying on the ground. The hanging strings mounted inside the skulls snapped after exposure to a few days of rain and wind. The glued on groom's "top hat" also became detached. A classic example as to one of the reasons we don't set up the "real" Halloween haunt until just before Halloween in these parts. We installed some eye screws and attached some new hanging strings. We also ditched the "witchy" looking top hat. One of the things that we are very happy about is how the custom color palette of LED C9 bulbs on the house created a nice multitone lighting of the prop down below. While the C9 bulbs don't fit the more authentic/realistic "haunted house/yard haunt" aesthetic, it does create softer and more realistic ambient lighting of the props below. We are able to use less flood and spot lights on the ground actually creating a spookier atmosphere at eye/ground level. The C9 bulbs on the house also serve as a beacon on Halloween night to let trick-or-treaters know there's something of interest to be seen down the street. We have several party pooper houses on our street that turn off their lights on Halloween night, so we upped the ante and doubled down so to speak.

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.

And The Answer Is "Nope!"

After experimenting with reactive green acrylic paint on two test subjects we've decided to leave our two swamp zombie skeleton props "as is" for the haunt. With the big night only 10 days away, we don't have time to walk back any bad choices. The reactive green paint, while under natural light didn't look horrible, under blue and purple LED lights glowed very unnaturally and produced the very "toxic waste zombie" effect we so desperately wanted to avoid. It would detract from the overall look of the haunt we're trying to achieve. 

So "Nope!"

Glow In The Dark Skeletons Part 2

We received the 4 glow in the dark skeletons we ordered from Target today. The Good: After charging them with our LED black lights they do indeed glow. The Bad: The pigment coating appears to be a "true" glow in the dark phosphorescent pigment and lacks the "reactive" quality of a neutral daylight/color fluorescent pigment under black light, e.g. the LED black light while on the skeleton almost neutralizes the glow effect. There may be an ideal distance between the light and the skeleton to get the optimal effect or perhaps we still need to go the extra mile and hand paint these ourselves with better quality pigments mixed into a clear acrylic sealer. That's why this is a Halloween 2024 haunt project. We're going to need to iron out the kinks between now and then. But here are some pics of one of the skeletons in the dark after it was charged up for a few minutes with an LED black light.

Glow In The Dark Skeletons

After doing some research/prep for our Halloween 2024 haunt, we discovered Target has $40 5' tall glow in the dark skeletons for sale online and in stock at this moment. Realistic looking glow in the dark skeletons have been hard to come by over the past several years. At $40 each could, these could potentially save us a lot of headaches next year with trying to paint our existing skeletons with glow in the dark paints. Some online reviews say these don't glow at night after sitting in normal light all day, but we suspect these contain reactive pigments that require black light to get the full glow effect. Amazon now sells various different outdoor LED black flood and landscape lights. Back in the early 2000's we had two 3' tall nicely detailed glow in the dark skeletons that looked great under black light, unfortunately, they got brittle over the years and fell apart. So we're taking the opportunity to stock up on these 5' skeletons from Target!

2023 Target Glow In The Dark Skeleton

Swamp Zombie Skeleton Props Version 2.0

Take two on converting a couple of our older skeletons into swamp zombie skeleton props. The Rust-Oleum matte camouflage spray paints achieved the look we were going for versus the glow in the dark aqua and green neutral pigments. Some green creepy cloth and faux vines draped on these two along with some complimentary accent lighting should do the trick for both daytime and nighttime viewing. Side Note: The red jewel dome eyes have battery powered LED lights behind them (these were the moviegoer skeletons from last year). We'll save the glow in the dark treatment for our 2024 ghost themed haunt revisit.