Halloween 2011: Alien Invasion!

As some of you may know, Halloween is the biggest holiday at my house.  As an owner of a DJ company, it's a perfect fit for our equipment, and it gives us the opportunity to connect with all the trick-or-treating families in our neighborhood (more than a hundred kids usually stop by).  They always look forward to our "getup" every year, and cars passing by during the day will often linger to check out our progress and ask us what movie we'll be showing.


Over the years, we've continued to outdo ourselves, and this year was our most complicated theme yet... aliens.  I've been wanting to do this theme for a few years now, and had finally committed to it a couple months out.  Little did I know that there was little in the way of store-bought items that followed our theme... plenty of ghouls, witches, and skeletons... but no aliens.  So with the support and help of the family, friends, and crew, we set out to create most everything ourselves.

Above is the very ambitious alien (from the movie Alien) that I made out of mostly recycled materials.  As the story goes, the Alien takes on some of the characteristics of its "host," and we jokingly referred to him as the Snowboarder Alien because he was formed from a reclaimed snowboarder helmet.  I really wanted to throw him out the window a few times, as it was difficult to figure out how to keep his head up structurally... luckily we had plenty of duct tape (thanks, Mark)!

To finish my alien, I used the paper mache technique from last year's Halloween for the head and torso, then made him silver, and painted on some details.  Plastic tubing from the hardware store finished off the look, and we even hooked up his "inner  mouth" to one of our fog machines, which turned out cool!

Our house on Halloween is usually set up with a tunnel-like entrance in the front, with decorations on the side (we're on a corner), interior "haunted house" structure that has expanded into three sections due to our new patio addition, and a 6 X 9 foot movie screen out front to show movies (we're video DJs).  With our special effects lighting, fog, and sound effects- it gets pretty crazy and impressive.  Our neighbor Gary from across the street supplies us every year with free pumpkins from the UC Davis Veg Crops fields, and can be spotted sitting on his lawn chair in his driveway to watch our movies on Halloween night.  
My husband, Mike made the awesome cyborg on the "launch pad" at the front entrance, Mark and Peter made cool UFO's out of old dog igloos, and Levon and the crew helped set up all the walls, audio/visual, and even carved a pumpkin or two!  Thanks, Cee for making awesome food- because we were about to forget about eating that day!


Here's a quick video I put together for you to see:




Yes, it's a hell of a lot of work, but in the end, there is one word that can describe this night... magic.

Little ones (and sometimes not so little ones), walking clumsily, yet proudly in their elaborate little outfits, are enthusiastically coaxed by parents to enter the scary tunnel.  Ninjas, princesses, and medieval knights huddle together as they warily walk through the fog, fake fire, and glow-in-the-dark lights towards their ultimate goal... candy.  Bravely they face their fears of unseen terror that may await inside- is that a monster? Will it get me?  Finally they're greeted by a lady in a funky space suit with funny goggles, carrying a basket full of treats!  As long as it's not her friend dressed up as a very convincing werewolf, they rush forward with their cute little voices...

"Trick or treat!  Trick or treat!"  

"What do you say?" ask the responsible adults behind them.

"Thank you!  Thank you!"

...Ah, the memories of being a kid on Halloween.

Faux Rocks and Paper Mache

No, this is not a post about food... BUT, since most foodies are pretty crafty (with their recipes), and love to find interesting ways to recycle (who doesn't?), I thought this would be a post of interest. It was certainly interesting to me!

A while back, we decided to redo our front and back yards. Good friend and housemate, Mark helped to make this long overdue project a reality last week. A large cement truck was involved, and at the end of the day, we had a beautiful front patio and a lovely sunken back patio. After smoothing everything out, Mark had the ingenious idea to use the leftovers to make two large concrete "boulders."

These remarkably real looking boulders were made simply by building a mound of dirt, covering the mound with concrete, then smoothing out the concrete and adding cracks and texture with a small trowel. Powdered concrete dye was added during the sculpting process to add some color. Pretty cool, huh?

Rocks and Boulders made of Concrete

Mark works on smoothing out his concrete rock (our backyard patio in the background)

Me and My Rock

Side view of my rock

The other project involved the nostalgic childhood art of paper mache. Every Halloween, we do something special for the kids in the neighborhood (probably because we don't have any of our own). We usually decorate the front entrance with a scary tunnel and show movies on our huge projection screen that we use in our DJ performances, as well as some of our lighting effects. It's become a Halloween tradition, and something our neighborhood looks forward to every year. Of course, we always want to outdo ourselves- but I hate to spend a ton of money on decorations! So this year, with some trepidation, I decided to make some of my own.

Once I got the hang of it, it was a pretty simple process. First, build your form, making sure it's bound tightly with tape or string. Then mix 1/2 cup of flour and 2 tablespoons of salt, and about 2 cups of water, and simmer on the stove until "gluey." Then add ground up paper until you get the consistency you want- sticky but not sticking to your fingers too much. You can also use dryer lint, among other things.

Paper Mache Characters

Tree face made with flour, water, salt, recycled paper, dirt, and pebbles for eyes

Made "spookier" with uplighting and tombstones!

Harry Potter Mandrake Plant made with a stuffed onion bag, masking tape, and branches from an old plastic plant

Adding paper mache made with flour, water, salt, and recycled brown paper bags

Crying Mandrake- the finished product! I used a little black acrylic paint to accentuate the face and wrinkles.

On Halloween night- I  used a little voice recorder (you can see it behind the middle plant) to play the screaming sounds that I recorded directly from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and put it on auto-loop with the volume on high.  The Mandrakes are sitting on top of scrunched up bags with potting soil to fill in and around the tops.

I also made Harry Potter's Dobby with plastic shopping bags, cardboard, and masking tape

Using the same technique as the Mandrakes, but I used recycled white copy paper (junk mail, old bills, etc.), which turned out gray in color

The face was painted with black, white, and yellow acrylic paint.  I then cut the sleeves and neck off an old white T-shirt and tied it onto his shoulders.  I originally wanted to have him hanging from a tree branch (thus the arm being up), but the tree was trimmed, so he got to sit in a chair, looking light a student raising his arm to answer a question LOL!

Teo gets into the spirit, and tries on Mike's SF Giants Panda Hat. They won that night, and became THE WORLD SERIES 2010 CHAMPIONS!!!

Overall, Halloween was a great success, with over 150 kids coming through!  We showed Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on the big screen in front of our house, which drew some kids to stop and watch.  The front entrance to our house was converted into a tunnel with fog and lighting effects from our DJ business, as well as my props. 

Entrance to the tunnel on the left, big movie screen on the right, and we had large fire lights in each window to make the house look like it had eyes!

Entering the tunnel, which wrapped around to the left

And, here are our beautiful pumpkins that we got from our neighbor, Garry, who works at the Veg Crops Dept at UC Davis.  

We're so fortunate to have a neighbor like Garry, who provides us with free pumpkins every year!

"Giant Rat and Pumpkin Cat" and "Alien Eyeball Pumpkin" (with glowing eyeball lights!)

Mark's Pumpkin Castle, made with his Dremel carving tools... COOL!

 Special thanks to everyone who helped!  ... Now, on to Thanksgiving!