Halloween 2011 - a sad sad season

Well, no updates to the blog for a long long time.  Life has been hectic over the last year with my job (or jobs).  I've recently signed on with a company in Tualatin, Oregon and have been working remotely from Austin until my wife and I can sell our house and move up to the wonderful (and cooler!) Pacific Northwest!  We're excited about the move, but given the timing in the year, I think my Halloween 2011 will be a big fat bust :(  I've sold most of my items (tombstones, fence and columns, etc) to my neighbors (keep up the tradition neighbors after we leave!) and have boxed all of the other Halloween items in preparation for moving to Oregon.

The good thing is that I get to make them all over again (and better this time - with waterproofing apparently!).  The bad thing is I get to make them all over again.

I'll have live vicariously through others this Halloween season.  Happy Haunting! 

Arduino, PIR, and MP3 - oh my!

In this post, I'll try and explain as best I can how to use an Arduino to play a sound file from a hacked MP3 player.  The sound file will be triggered using a passive infrared sensor (PIR sensor) hooked up to the Arduino's output. 

Here are the parts I used:

• Arduino Duemilanove
• Proto shield with mini breadboard for Arduino (not necessary, but makes everything compact)
• PIR sensor
• 2N3904 (or 2N2222) Transistor
• 5VDC SPDT Micro Relay
• 1N4001 Diode
• 1K Ohm 1/4 watt resistor
• COBY MP-C827 MP3 Player (not ideal - see notes below)
  OR
• USB2M 50 second recording module (I found this to be a better solution than the Coby MP3 player)

Let's get started...

Boarded up windows

I tried this last year and it didn't work out as well as I had hoped.  This year, I built a frame which would friction fit between our brick window-casing on the front of our house. 

Graveyard Columns HowTo - Part 3

Almost there!  I've painted each column with a latex semi-gloss black for a base coat as seen here:

Then, I took some gray latex paint and brushed over the top of the black.  Make sure not to cover up the black base color entirely.  The black will be visible in the low parts (made by the water and blow torch).

Once this dries, I'm going to add a bit of white to my gray to get a little lighter color and use a sponge to hit it gently to make some highlights.  Of course, you could add as many colors and shades as you like (green for moss/lichens, etc).  If I have time, I may try some of those, but for now, this will be good enough.

Until next time...
Happy Haunting!

Graveyard Columns HowTo - Part 2

I've been working on finishing the columns this weekend.  I'm pretty far along now.  I cut the rest of the foam board and glued them to the panels, trimmed out the primary (test) column and made a top for it.  I don't have the procedure down just yet for the top.  It works, but I can probably improve on it for the next one I build.  Here are some photos of the first column before painting.  The texture you see on the foam is from spraying the foam with a spray bottle to wet it and then taking a blow torch (outside people - toxic fumes!) and lightly wave it back and forth.  It causes a really cool weathered effect.

Here you can see the top is separate from the base for easy storage

Graveyard Columns HowTo - Part 1

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm trying to make some graveyard columns for my haunt.  I have the basic construction done and thought I'd share some photos with you.  This post will only cover what I've actually done so far.  I'll post another with relevant photos once I'm further along.

Here's what I used (so far anyway):

• 1x4 lumber to build the face plates for each column
• plastic milk crates
• wood screws to assemble the face plates (wood glue helps too)
• mini bungee cords (found a bundle of them at Home Depot)
• small eyelet screws (hooks would work as well I guess - something to hook the end of the bungee cords to)

Graveyard columns new and improved

For the last two years I've put out a cemetery fence with columns for Halloween. It definitely adds to the feel of a cemetery of course but it also helps keep kids from running through the lawn and potentially tripping over the wires and cables that light up the other decorations.

From Halloween 2009

The columns were made out of 1x2 lumber and then covered with sheets of regular white beaded styrofoam and painted. They worked pretty well but they were heavy and a pain to store in the off season. So, last year I decided I would try and come up with a column that looked just as good but could be easily disassembled for storage. I think I might have figured something out and it centers around milk crates.

My thinking is that I could get some plastic milk crates and stack them up to whatever height and then create four panels (one for each side) that could be attached (and, of course, removed) easily. These panels would then be covered in foam board and decorated like normal. When Halloween is over, I can simply remove the side panels and stack (they should stack and store quite nicely) and then unstack the milk crates and use them for storing other Halloween decorations.

As soon as I start this project, I'll post photos and a more detailed how-to (assuming it works out well that is).