Open House was a big success

We had a lot of people show up on a very nice Sunday afternoon to visit us at the graveyard. The Coffin Cruisers had 6 hearses parked along the street. The MHS Graveyard Dancers were in costume and makeup and performed their "Thriller" number all afternoon for an enthusiastic crowd.

First night of full effects

Our first night with full effects worked out very well. We had a few minor issues but they will be easily fixed for the next day. Had a LOT of people stop by all night. Chris and I both growned when we looked at our watch and it was only 9:30pm and we said another hour and a half? We must be getting old?

The graveyard dancers are back!

Yesterday 9 members of the Milwaukie High School Dance team came by the graveyard to try on costumes and do a quick rehearsal of their routine this year. They will be performing this Sunday during our open house and at our PCS fundraiser and on Halloween night.

Corpsed Skeletons

We had some extra help this weekend so we corpsed a few skeletons. One Mr. Thrifty tiny skeleton and one Budget Bart the medium sized skeleton.

We have pews!

Dad made some pews for us that we put together and detailed this past weekend. These are for the interior decor that will have a church theme this year.

Win a Mud Man!!!

We donated a Mud Man to Portland Center Stage's Promising Playwrights Program.

So you can win your very own Davis Graveyard Mud Man. This is a custom piece that was built specifically for this auction. He is over 7 feet tall and has a LED light in his hood that shines down on the tray in his hands that is perfect for holding Halloween candy for your trick-or-treaters!

He is currently in the theater lobby featured on the PCS website.

Help us support this great cause and contact the theater to buy tickets ($5 each) or email us and we will arrange for you to pick them up at the Graveyard.

Happy Halloween

Back at the Pumpkin Patch

We will have a few of our props featured out at the Haunted Pumpkin Patch this year. He also donated tickets for all the gift bags for our fundraiser for Portland Center Stage :)

Our friend Craig who runs the place contacted us to see if we had anything to sell, so we sold him a few of our extra props, a mud man and a coffin. We hope to do more work with him next year.

It is a great corn maze and we hear that he has done it up big this year. We will have $1 off coupons on the back of our FAQs at the Graveyard. Pick one up and stop by the corn maze it is a great adventure!!!

And, the fresh corn on the cob is yummy!!!

Our new scaffolding

Our good friend Preston had metal catwalks built and painted for us to use on our scaffolding for the cathedral facade. It made it sturdy and easier for people to walk around. We were able to have 2 people on the scaffolding and the upper panels, trim and top pieces went on much faster. It is made out of aluminum with holes in it for the weather and grip treads so you don't slip. We even build out platforms for the ends to make the sides easier to reach.

The Display is up!

It was a LONG weekend. We started at 9am on Saturday morning we were done by 8:30pm Saturday night and most everything was up in the yard. We got up a little later on Sunday (in fact Chris was not feeling well so she didn't help out). We spent most of the day on Sunday doing the details.

We could have NEVER pulled this off without the help of everyone who showed up both days to give us a hand. This display would never happen without all our wonderful friends and family you give so generously of their time.

Last few props

Finished painting the last few tombstones and props for this year. We made a few auction props for the fundraiser and a gift for a business that is helping out.

Typical scene in our shop

Just a funny picture of the things lying around in the shop right now.

Do you hear that?

Its the clock ticking down the minutes until we setup the display. AAAAAHHHHHH!

Here are some photos of the work we did this past weekend.

Chris is a sculpter!

This is a Houdini monument we are working on. Chris says she used her one-time-only sculpting skill to create this bust out of a foam head a box for latex gloves and some newspaper soaked in monster mud.

I say FANTASTIC and hope this isn't the last time!

Last 3-day weekend before Halloween

We worked on halloween stuff all weekend but don't have a lot of pictures to show. In spite of the wet weather we were able to get a lot of little stuff done. It has become our Labor Day weekend tradition to put out the sign to entice the neighbors about the upcoming display.

A new Voice from Hell

While we were at HAuNTcon in Houston back in May we met a really great guy named Dick Terhune from Connecticut. Dick provides voice-talent services to the haunt industry. We asked him if he wouldn't mind being the voice of our new talking hearse driver. After working out a script and a few takes this is what he created.

We created a funeral scene for a short film

We were contacted by a independant film maker who asked us if we could setup a funeral scene with our props for her movie. We knew we would have a mausoleum completed and setup in the backyard this summer along with some other new props this year so we said yes. It turned out pretty nice.

We received a Grant!

We were awarded a grant from the Clackamas County Cultural Coalition and the Oregon Cultrual Trust. As some of you may know we have always done our annual hallween display using our own money and have never taken donations or done any fund raising for ourselves. This year we were planning on spending some additional money on our events and thought we'd try appling for some grant money to help offset the expenses.

We were one of 9 awardees out of 14 applicants and the only artist team. The funds will go towards profesional custom costumes for the dancers and airbrush makeup supplies. It will also help pay for the rental of a PA/Sound system for our events too.

Tombstone Workshop was a big hit!

It was a long day Saturday but everyone had a great time. Our morning session started at 9am but people arrived as instructed a little earlier. We had 12 people show up and carve out their own custom epitaphs. Everyone got right to work taping their epitaphs together and gluing them to their tombstone blanks. It took a while for people to get their tombstones carved but once that was done they cut out their shapes and added any details. Then they painted their lettering and the tombstone black. When things were dry (which took a while with the cloudy morning) they added a coat of dark grey and after that dried they added the light grey with a sponge roller. The final step was to age the tombstone with some watered down black paint with a brush and rag or a sponge. The morning session wrapped up by 2pm while the afternoon session arrived. We repeated the same process with the afternoon group of 11. The afternoon session was done and we cleaned up just after 7pm.

There were some great tombstones created during both sessions. Some great ideas for shapes and layout. Some good painting techniques too. Here are just of few examples of our wonderful students!

Our friends got married

Our good friends Jason and Becky got married this weekend. Friar Eblen officiated. Jason's long time friend Jeff Eblen got ordained as a Friar on the Internet and performed a short, sweet and humorous ceremony in a small tree covered corner of the grounds at the Grand Hotel in Forest Grove.

Jason wore a kilt he had custom made for him at the Scottish Country Store.

What a great day for Becky, Jason, Quinten, Gabe, and Colin. We wish them all the luck in the world.

Skelingo's in their natural habitat

To do before going away for the weekend

1. Set the timer for watering the lawn.
2. Fed the cats.
3. Brought in the mail and the paper.
4. Packed the cooler.
5. Close the windows.
6. Set the alarm.

But I seem to think I am forgetting something....

Oh yeah, this is what happens when you forget to feed your lawn ornaments while you are away.


(Thanks Mort!)

Back from FrighFest 2008

Well, I have to say even though our attendance was down and the schedule was pretty loose with not a lot of different things to learn, it was a great weekend.

Chris and I thank everyone for the interest in our video effects information. It was a challenge trying to figure out how to turn a 60min seminar into a 3 day event. But I think we did okay and filled in a bit with some graveyard decorating tips.

Our hats are off to Steve and his WONDERFUL movie theater display. My only disappointment was having to go home each night instead of camping so we could sit and watch at least one of the movies each night. Next year that will change.

Stacy and her snake charmer tent was fabulous! Of course her role as the ex-Pirate King and creator of “The Code” book just go to show how creative she can be. And don’t let her fool us with her reservation about public speaking she did an fantastic job an our new Pirate Kings ceremony. We also LOVEd the book making session. A lot of REAL creative stuff came out of that.

The Canadian’s (Dyanna, Corinne, Grant, et al) were as always a hoot! Loved to see you get your foot!

It was always fun to hang out with the Darkwing Manor crew and even though the décor was WAY down this year and we missed you in our neighborhood we tried to keep the area interesting for you.

It was also a blast to hang out next to the Scareaway Frights Pederson group. Loved the space alien costume Ross!

Thanks again for the music Chris. How do you know how to pick out those songs for all of us older generation folks I’ll never know. It seems like each song was something we all enjoyed. (maybe not the kids that crashed our dance?)

And of course Vern and Sue! How could we have FFNW without you. We are looking forward to lifting the stress off your shoulders for this event so you can be as involved as you want to be and not be so stressed out over the details.

To everyone else that we talked to or shared with us thanks for a great weekend. Here is to a great Halloween season and looking forward to next year’s FFNW (July 8-12 2009).

You can't build a Mausoleum in 3 days!

Not even if you work your butt off! We know, we tried! I started Friday morning cutting out all the frames and building them. Had to cut out early to go to a 4th gathering. Started back up on Saturday building the frames and getting all the foam cut and attached. Had to run to Home Depot for glue for the foam. We cut and textured the wood doors. On Sunday finished the panels and then started to put it together. Drew the lines. Had to run to Home Depot to get a bit for the Dremel for the grout lines. We got the panels all textured and painted black by 8pm on Sunday. We were EXAUSTED. Still need to paint the panels (grout, coat of grey, coat of light grey, and age) and the doors. Then we have to assemble it all and do some final details (glue handles to doors). THEN we can take pictures of it for the book. We also are going to have to mock up some parts of the process so we can photograph the steps in between. Our photographer help is on vacation until August so we will just store it until then?