2008 - Coffins...

Remembering the long hours with the jigsaw in 2007 I decided on a much faster project of building a couple of coffins. I also had a hard time passing up a new zombie and flying reaper from the Halloween store that year. All of the previous decorations made a return as well and the yard finally felt like it was starting to be populated and not look so sparse.

2007 - Cemetery Sign...

Realizing that buying a new prop every year could get really expensive I decided that making our own decorations would be a lot cheaper. Based on a sign that the local Target store by us had decorated with that year, I designed this sign to put at the front of the side yard for our small cemetery. It printed on about 34 pieces of 8-1/2 X 11 sheets of paper. 25 hours of cutting with a jigsaw made me never want to make another one. This was also the first year that I started hanging some of my props in the trees in September. Who says Halloween should only be in October?

2006 - We're hooked...

Those few decorations the first year were enough to give us the haunting bug. Next from the Halloween store came the 12 foot clown and half demon. We ended up dropping the clown on the kids as they walked up the driveway and it was a big hit. The reaper on the stone bench and some foam pumpkins were stolen that year. :(

2005 - The beginning...

Proudly hanging from a sycamore tree is the first Halloween prop we ever bought. Foam pumpkins on the fence in the spirit of everyone's favorite animated film The Nightmare Before Christmas. My wife's reaper sitting on the stone bench and six headstones that I cut out of plywood, painted, and stenciled.

A couple of spiders and a motion activated bone prop above the porch.