Witch From Scratch

Last year's female zombie prop transformed into a scary witch with light up eyes for Halloween 2013. I hid the 9 volt battery in the chin!

Cauldron's "Magic Brew" Sneak Peek

Sneak peek at our "Magic Brew" in action. The glass pebbles are the "bubbles". After all the glass pebbles are in place I will glob Liquitex Glossy Heavy Gel in between them. The hole in the center is for mounting an animated witch's hand. The "Magic Brew" will sit just inside our hanging cauldron. One of our witch props will be standing over the cauldron. The cauldron will have a wood "fire" burning underneath (a string of silicone flame tipped amber mini lights under fire wood). The prop scene will be uplit with a small flood light. Hope it will have some "wow" factor on Halloween night!

In hindsight I conceived a somewhat easier approach to this prop. I could have "Swiss Cheesed" the luan board with various sized holes and glued the glass pebbles over them and just lighted the prop from underneath inside the cauldron. Didn't come up with that until after I started gluing the LED lights down, but I think the glass pebbles create a nice lens effect sitting on top of the LEDs.

Witch On A Broom Prop Sneak Peek

A sneak peek at our "Witch On A Broom" prop. Took a hanging 48" witch prop and mounted the witch's inner wire frame to the broom stick using a wooden dowel (the dowel is camouflaged by the witch's costume). The witch's hands are attached to the broom stick using floral wire. The broom is composed of a decorative birch pole (a leftover from another prop build) and some branches and straw from a rustic country broom decoration cable tied to the end of the pole. I tried really hard to get the broom in an ascending position by cutting the dowel's base at an angle and then screwing the dowel to the pole, but gravity has the broom sitting horizontal. I'm just happy that the witch is attached to the broom and hasn't come crashing down while hanging up in the basement. When you're bodging together various parts to make a prop you sometimes have to say 'Good enough!" Going to hang the witch on Halloween night from one of the the gable corners on the front of the house and flood light it from below. 

And It Begins!

Preparations for the 2013 Halloween yard haunt are already underway! We're revisiting the "Witches" theme and it's not always easy to find highly detailed Halloween masks in the genre you want in any given year. So we figured we better start looking now and found this beauty on eBay. A witch hat, wig, and some red LED eyes and she'll be ready to go!