Lady Revenant, Glowing Ghost

I belong to several DIY Halloween prop groups, but "back in the day", I only belonged to one.  I met a lot of good folks on that group, some of whom I keep in touch with 15 years later.  Two in particular helped me a lot--Donna, and Holly.  Both came to visit me when I lived in the Chicago suburb of Naperville, IL, and both brought Halloween to my door.  :)

Holly brought me a lovely cemetery scene painted umbrella, and a PVC and chickenwire dummy form to use as a "body" in my cemetery.  Both of which, I still use to this day.

I have managed to keep in touch with Holly over the years, but sadly, I have lost contact with Donna, although I would love to catch up with her again!

Donna helped me put together the first incarnation of Lady Revenant.  She also made one of my tombstones, while I worked on another, and was able to come by a few times to chat and create with me.  She actually offered me a lot of her materials, but I was too shy to accept most of it.  (sorry, Donna!)

Because I felt bad about accepting so many of the materials that Donna brought to my house, Lady Rev was rather thin in her first incarnaton.  Donna tried her best to get me to use more cheesecloth to make her look better, but I was stubborn, and said I'd buy the material to fix her later...which took a year.  So, she's a bit too transparent in my 2004 photos.

The next photo is more recent, from 2009, and is probably the best shot of her that I have, to date.  We had moved from Naperville, IL to Las Vegas, NV.  In Vegas, the homes are set up as "zero lot line properties", so your neighbor's house makes up part of your garden wall.  The houses are very close to one another, as opposed to some other places that I've lived.  It worked out wonderfully, that we had a nice ornate black iron gate to put her behind, and it was a good dark location for her.

Now that I once again live in IL (my home state), we have wide open spaces again, and she's exposed to too much natural light.  I need to build a mausoleum for her, to combat that.  For 2014, she will be moved further back from the sidewalk where it is slightly darker, but I don't expect her to look as she did in 2009.  There will still be too much natural light.

She was very easy to make, and inexpensive.

You will need a length of 1 inch PVC pipe (schedule 40) cut to the desired height.  Remember to make it roughly 2 feet shorter than you want her to stand, because the styrofoam wig head will add about that much height.  The only other "required" materials are cheesecloth or tulle, one wire drycleaning hanger, and something to "stake" the PVC into the ground, like rebar, or a tall garden stake.  You will need something to cut or at least score the hanger to make a break in it.

Alternately you could opt to hang the ghost, and skip the PVC.  I have not been very successful in this, so I prefer to have her on the PVC pipe.  My attempt at hanging her was using a "coffee mug hook" in the top of her head, and taping it down with white duct tape; then using monofilament to hang her.  The tape that I used did not hold, and I only used it because the hook would not hold on its own, either.  You could make a monofilament "cage" to suspend her entire head with, but that was too time consuming for me, so back to PVC she went.

I used about 3 yards of cheesecloth, cut into different lengths and randomly draped over her form.  I also rolled a piece up and away from her face to form a sort of "hood" and allow her facial features to only be covered by one piece of cheesecloth, and the tulle draping that I used (2 yards)

Both cheesecloth and tulle will glow under black light, but to achieve this amount of glow above, you will need to soak the material in RIT Whitener.  Otherwise, the glow will be very faint.  You will also need UV black lights to make her glow, but I consider them an option, because she doesn't really have to glow.  I use the spiral bulbs in yard stake spotlights.

If you live in a wet climate, you may want to weather proof your bulbs by taping a smallish Mason jar over the bulb, and to the yard stake with duct tape.  Rain on a hot bulb will likely cause it to shatter.  These bulbs get extremely hot, and are meant for indoor use.

If you use PVC, bend the hook of the hanger over the top opening of the PVC.  Cut the hanger in the center of the flat part, bend the ends up so you don't put out any eyes; bend the cut halves up and out, and you have "arms".  They're not realistic close up, but they will hold the material out to give the appearance of shoulders and arms.  It works in the dark, trust me.  Then just tape the bent hook to the PVC to keep it from swinging around in the wind, and you have a body shape.

If you don't use PVC, you can just put the bent hook up into the neck of the wig head, and go from there.  You may need to tape or hot glue it in, though. The weight of the material may pull it down if it doesn't have the PVC for additional support.

The styrofoam wig heads are pretty cheap, from Sally's Beauty Supply.  Those are available for sale to the public, without need for a beautician's license.  You can find them for sale elsewhere (eBay, Amazon, other beauty stores), but they are usually more expensive unless at a thrift shop or yard sale.

Other optional materials are the candle and hands that I added.  I made the hands using additional hangers, and wrapped them in masking tape.  The tape doesn't hold very well, but these were made years ago, when white duct tape either didn't exist, or I didn't know about it.  I am re-making her hands this year, and will likely not use masking tape this time.

Her candle is an electric Christmas candle, like you put in a window.  They are technically for indoor use only.  I have not used the candle in inclement weather, I only used it when we lived in Vegas, and it was not exposed to rain there.

Save the Bamboo!

When we bought our first house last summer, there was only one way to sum it up.  It needed a LOT of work, and some of that, was re-doing what the previous owners had done to it.  As our lovely neighbor stated "Their tastes are much different than yours are."  Not that it's a bad thing.  ;)

For instance, I love roosters in my kitchen.  I was pleased to see that in addition to the oven that was left behind, there were burner covers left as well, with rooster designs on them.  I had some round ones for my old electric stove, but this gas stove has square burners of course, so mine wouldn't work here.

Then there's the awful white walls, fake ceramic tile-look PAINTED back-splash, and sunflower border in the kitchen.  Soooo not my style.  Someone had also painted over every single gorgeous piece of antique woodwork in the house.  EVERY.  SINGLE.  ONE.  I could cry!

Unfortunately, someone's love of roosters also prompted them to put a rustic wagon wheel style hanging light dead center in the dining room.  Rooster adorned.  I'd move it to the kitchen, but I like having a ceiling fan in there.  The rest of the dining room is modernized, so I'm really confused at what they were going for, there!

So there are a lot of projects for us.

They also left behind a leaky hot tub, that we may or may not sell.

In front of the hot tub, acting as a privacy screen, they planted some skinny bamboo.  It looked really nice the first year.  This year, not so much.  From day one, we have debated taking it out, too.

Then today, I finally got around to reading some of my Halloween prop pins, and decided that I needed to do something with all of the recyclables that I've been saving for projects.  I started with "Wind Hooters" made out of plastic bottles, single serve and 2 liter.

What I found was that these modern day "aero flutes" were actually a cheap and easy way to imitate a much older, and far less tacky outdoor decoration.  Natural flute stakes made from dried bamboo.

Supposedly the bamboo stakes make a much nicer sound than the plastic bottles do, and I am sure that is true.  Since our bamboo has already died off, I'm thinking it might be dry enough to make standing flutes.  I won't have the opportunity to do it today, but hopefully in the next few days, I will be able to get out there and carve some spots out, to see.  Our bamboo is so skinny that I'm not sure it will work.

How awesome would it be to have built-in flute music, though?  Eerie flute music, at that!  Hopefully it won't be a nuisance to us, or our neighbor, at bedtime!  If so, then it will have to go.  I'll just try a couple for now, and take them out if they do; and then make another specifically for Halloween night.

Lenticular Funeral Wreath Prop

I found a pin for this prop on Pinterest, but there was no tutorial.  The original used a different lenticular picture, and what looked like a fall garland or two for covering the wreath form.  I'm not sure what kind of wreath form was used.  The prop also had a black ribbon that read "Beloved", and the wreath was on a dark wire stand, like you would see at a real funeral.

The first collage of photos shows my initial attempt at making the prop without instructions. I changed it a bit for the other photo collage, and I'm still not completely happy with it.  I may take some flowers out, and spread them out a bit. It seems too full.  I may also change some of the flowers out, if I find others that I like better. 

Overall, it was worth what little money I did spend on it.  The flowers were the most expensive part, and only because I used so many.  I think that it will make a nice addition to my cemetery scene this Halloween.

3/8" Frost King pipe insulation was used to make the wreath form. I attempted to use a pool noodle, but it was too thick to make a form small enough for this. There was too much space around the lenticular picture.

The hot glue and black lei flowers in the top left photo were not used, because I couldn't find my low-heat gun, and I don't want to hot glue anything until I rearrange the flowers somewhat.

I had to push most of the leaves up to meet the bottom of the flower before making my cuts, because they are spaced out further on the stems. This helps fill up space. I wasn't doing it at first, and had to go back and put them back on the first few flowers due to gaps.

I left about an inch of the stem between the pushed-up leaves and my cut line. This allows you some stem to use to anchor the flower into the wreath.

To cut the flowers, I used regular scissors to "score" the area that I was trying to cut, and then I bent the stem back and forth a few times for it to snap off there. Wire cutters would have been easier, but I was rather unorganized this morning.

The flowers, duct tape, and picture are all from Dollar Tree. The pipe insulation came in a package of several, from Home Depot, but I have seen them for sale at Dollar General, as well.


I am no florist! I cut the outer frame off, and squeezed the picture inside the wreath form. Luckily, it fit snugly. In the first attempt, I had taped the form to the front of the frame, but the picture was set too far back, and difficult to see. Below is the fixed version.

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