Voodoo Wreath

$20 - $25 (based on 2023 prices)
Makes one wreath

With one of the wreaths left over from 2017’s haunt, I spent some downtime during the summer of 2023 creating a prop I planned to make for 2015’s voodoo theme but never completed. For a future built, I think it would be interesting to use tarot cards rather than playing cards to cater this prop to a sorceress motif.

• One twelve-inch grapevine wreath
• Two decks of playing cards
• Hot glue gun and glue sticks
• Three twenty-four-inch strands of beads
• Three four-inch ceramic skulls
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in flat black*
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in flat white*
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in glossy red*
• One five-pound flour sack
• At least four tablespoons of dark roasted coffee grounds
• One pan large enough to soak the flour sack
• One Styrofoam ball (two inches in diameter)
• One Styrofoam cone (three inches in height)
• Two to three yards of brown twine
• One package of plastic coins (roughly thirty coins)
• One package of rubber snakes (roughly six snakes)
• Two small buttons
• Three small safety pins
• Five quilting pins

1. Reserve the aces and jokers for step two, combine both decks of cards, and shuffle them. Then, beginning along the outer edge, glue the cards to the wreath, building up layers and varying their patterns. You want them as random as possible, so try not to clutter cards from the same suit together. For added visual interest, purchase decks with different colors or designs.

2. Once the entire wreath is covered, use the aces and jokers reserved from the previous step to fill in any gaps at the front. For thematic purposes, I wanted these two cards more visible than the others; however, you can always pick alternate cards – or no cards at all – to be highlighted.  

3. Weave the strands of beads through the cards, using a small dab of glue to hold them in place. Although I made random passes to create a haphazard design, you can be more deliberate for a structured pattern.

4. Paint the ceramic skulls white, accenting their features with black, and then affix them to the wreath, making them as visible as possible. If you want to give the prop additional color, consider using alternate hues that match your haunt’s color scheme.

5. Boil enough water to completely submerge the flour sack and pour it into the pan. Add the coffee. The longer you allow the coffee to brew, the darker the stain will become. Likewise, greater amounts of coffee will produce a richer stain. Submerge the sack in the coffee mixture and soak it until it reaches the color you desire. I soaked mine for four days and scattered the coffee grounds over the top of the fabric to add spots. Remove the sack from the water and allow it to dry.

6. As the flour sack dries, make a template for the voodoo doll by tracing the outline for the Styrofoam ball and cone onto a sheet of paper. You want enough fabric to thoroughly cover the foam, so give yourself at least a one-inch border around their shape.  

7. Position the pattern on the sack, trace its outline, and cut it out. This will give you two pieces: a front and back. Following this, place the foam body between the two pieces and sew them together, using scraps from the sack as padding to fill the arms and legs. Because the fabric is rather thick, use a darning needle the thread the twine through the cloth. Also, you want the needlework to look messy and uneven, giving the doll a disheveled appearance.  

8. Form the doll’s face with the buttons and safety pins. For visual interest, I used buttons with different colors and sizes. After this, bind a tuft of raffia with black thread and glue it and one of the plastic coins to the doll.  

9. Pour a small amount of red paint into the palm of your hand, spread it around, and use it to pat a bloody handprint onto the doll. For haunters who do not want to get their hands dirty, you can wear a rubber glove during this process.

10. Finish the voodoo doll by inserting the quilting pins into random portions of its body. To prevent the pins from falling out, apply a small dab of glue to their tips before inserting them into the foam.  

11. Attach the voodoo doll to the wreath and finish the prop by accenting it with a random assortment of fake coins and rubber snakes. What you choose, though, is entirely up to your haunt’s theme. For instance, you can adhere tickets and striped balls for a circus motif or dice and mini liquor bottles for a casino theme.

12. If the wreath did not come with a hanging loop, you can create a one with the excess twine (or use steel wire for added support).

*You will not use the entire bottle’s content for this project.

"Ghosts" (A Poem)

Like Emily Dickinson’s “One need not be a Chamber to be Haunted,” Elizabeth Jennings’ poem “Ghosts” employs apparitions as an unconventional metaphor. Rather than remnants of the past haunting an abode, Jennings uses the notion of specters to symbolize remnants of regret tormenting the mind, like the remorse of never telling someone you love them or the pang of missed opportunities.

Those houses haunt in which we leave
Something undone. It is not those
Great words or silence of love

That spread their echoes through a place
And fill the locked-up, unbreathed gloom.
Ghosts do not haunt with any face

That we have known; they only come
With arrogance to thrust at us
Our own omissions in a room.

The words we would not speak they use,
The deeds we dared not act they flaunt,
Our nervous silences they bruise;

It is our helplessness they choose
And our refusals that they haunt.[1]

Works Referenced

Jennings, Elizabeth. “Ghosts.” Collected Poems, 1953-1985. Manchester: Carcanet, 1986. 32-33.
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[1] Jennings, 32-33.

Medical Cabinets

$40 - $50 (based on 2020 prices)
Makes two cases

Using smaller props – like severed ears, eyes, and fingers – I decided to create two large props to add additional specimens to 2020’s laboratory. For this version, I utilized anatomical labels written in Latin to make the build appear like a twisted educational display similar to those seen in doctor’s offices.

• Two 13” x 13” shadow boxes
• One 10 oz. can of interior/exterior, fast-drying spray paint in flat black*
• One 10 oz. can of interior/exterior, fast-drying spray paint in metallic silver*
• Three pieces of 8”x 11.5” brown cardstock
• One 4 oz. bottle of all-purpose tacky glue*
• An assortment of vinyl body parts (five fingers, one ear, and one liver)
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in flat beige*
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in flat brown* 
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in flat mustard yellow*
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in flat navy blue*
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in flat pink *
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in flat purple*
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in flat red*
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in glossy maroon*
• One 2 oz. bottle of acrylic paint in glossy white*
• One latex face mask
• One small, white ping pong ball (1 3/8” in diameter)
• One to two feet of red yarn
• One glass doll eye
• One 0.44 oz. bottle of clear nail polish*
• Four small plastic bones
• One 8 oz. can of oil-based interior wood stain in Jacobean*
• One 8 oz. can of oil-based interior wood stain in red chestnut*
• One piece of 8”x 11.5” copy paper with anatomical labels printed on it
• At least one tablespoon of dark roasted coffee grounds
• One pan large enough to soak the paper
• Fifteen 1.5-inch T-pins
• One 0.3 fluid ounce bottle of red food coloring*
• One 4 oz. bottle of clear, all-purpose tacky glue gel*

1. Remove the backing and glass from the shadow boxes and, on a newspaper-lined surface in a well-ventilated area, build up layers of black and metallic silver spray paint to give them the look of steel. This process works best if you apply a base coat of black and then add the sliver, working in quick bursts to allow parts of the black to remain visible. You can also touch up portions with additional blasts of black if the silver becomes too heavy.

2. To give the frames a filthy appearance, water down brown paint and brush it over their surface, creating drips down the sides and permitting the liquid settle into the cracks (you can also use a spray bottle for the application). You may want to experiment with the consistency prior to doing this: the more water you add, the fainter the wash; the less water you add, the darker the wash.

3. Cover the backings in a thin layer of glue and adhere the cardstock, using the edge of a card or ruler to smooth the surface and remove any bubbles. For an alternate appearance, you crumple the paper before affixing it to create tears and wrinkles and add spots with dabs of olive or vegetable oil.  

4. On a newspaper-lined surface, apply three even coats of beige paint to the ear and fingers and three coats of mustard yellow to the liver. Although I used three, you may want more or less based on your desired coverage.  

5. Give the ears and fingers a smudging of pink paint, focusing primarily on the raised areas. Use your own skin patterns or those found in a medical textbook for reference. Then, using a brush with splayed bristles, stipple purple paint along the surface of the liver, ensuring you do not cover up too much of the yellow.

6. Detail the fingernails with glossy white paint and smudge red paint around their cuticles. After this, paint the liver’s arteries and veins red.

7. Using a brush with splayed bristles, apply a smattering of glossy maroon paint around the wounds of the ear and fingers and along the surface of the liver. To add further depth to the liver, add a light stippling of navy-blue paint to random spots.

8. Remove the elastic band from the mask, trim its edges to make them more uneven, and, on a newspaper-lined surface in a well-ventilated area, apply three even coats of beige paint. Akin to step four, the number of layers is based on your desired coverage. Once the paint has dried, smudge the face with pink, focusing primarily on the cheeks, lips, and nose.

9. Complete the mask’s paint job by smudging glossy maroon paint around the eyes, lips, and nose and along the edges. You want to concentrate the application in the crevices of the mouth, the folds along the eyes, and the openings of the nostrils.  

10. Cut a two-inch section from the yarn and fray the ends. These will serve as the veins for the eyeball. Apply a light layer of glue to the ping pong ball and, using a needle or other finely tipped object, spread the yarn strands across it. How bloodshot you plan to make the prop all depends on how thinly you separate the strands: a thorough division will produce a finer appearance; thicker clusters will create a more inflamed looked.  

11. After the glue has dried, adhere the glass doll eye to the center of the ball and coat the entire thing with one or two layers of clear nail polish. To make this process easier, make a small stand out of an upturned paper cup or plate.  

12. Once the nail polish has dried, cut ten strands of yarn in varying lengths and glue them to the back of the eyeball to form the optic nerve. Although this may look goofy now, the effect will be much more impressive after you apply the blood glue.

13. On a newspaper-lined surface in a well-ventilated area, paint the bones with the wood stain. I started with the red chestnut as a base and then dabbed Jacobean around the edges to darken them. This gave them a meaty appearance which made them look fresh. Then, I used a 1/16 bit to drill holes into each one for the T-pins in step seventeen.

14. Position all of the specimens on the backings and glue them in place. Try not to cluster them too close together, leaving enough room for the labels.

15. Add the coffee to a cup of boiling water. The longer you allow the coffee to brew, the darker the stain. Likewise, greater amounts of coffee will produce a richer stain. Since I wanted irregular spots rather than a unified discoloration, I placed the copy paper on a baking sheet, splashed coffee and grounds onto its surface, allowed the liquid to sit for a few minutes, and then moved it to a space to dry.  

16. Once the paper is dry, cut out the anatomical labels and glue them to the backings below their corresponding body parts. As with step three, you can distress the labels by crumpling them to create wrinkles and dabbing oil onto their surfaces to fashion spots.

17. Insert the T-pins into the body parts to make them appear tacked to the backings. Because they will need to fit comfortably within the shadow boxes, you may need to insert them at an angle or trim their length to get them to fit without touching or scraping the glass.

18. In a plastic container (because the food coloring will stain, use something disposable or that you won’t mind dying), pour in your desired amount of clear glue gel and slowly add red food coloring to the solution until it reaches the sanguine hue you desire. Then, smear the body parts with the glue.  

19. On a newspaper-lined surface in a well-ventilated area, paint the glass with the wood stain. Apply a thin coat and pat it with paper towels to produce a hazed appearance and brush the edges to create the illusion of grime buildup. Refrain from making the coverage too thick, though, because it can obscure the specimens inside the boxes.

20. Reattach the backings and glass to the frames, gluing everything in place. To add an extra level of gore, use the remaining blood glue to accent the edges of the frames.

21. The prop can be enhanced further with additional details, like biohazard labels or the name of the specimen written at the top of the frame.

*You will not use the entire bottle’s content for this project.

Roman Death Portraits: A Mini-Essay

     In the sixth book of his historical survey, which catalogues Rome from 264 until 146 B.C.E., the Greek historian Polybius details the common practices of a noble Roman funeral. As part of the memorial, the body was carried to the rostra of the Forum, where it was displayed – often sitting upright – as the eldest son and other relatives delivered speeches praising the deceased. After the burial, a death portrait, made of paint and wax and inscribed with the individual’s achievements and name, was exhibited in the villa’s atrium, where it was crowned with bay leaves on days of celebrations and removed during funerals and worn by members of the family as they led the procession to the rostra.[1]

Works Referenced

Polybius. The Histories. Trans. Robin Waterfield. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.
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[1] Polybius, 409.

North Pole Sign

$50 - $60 (based on 2022 prices)
Makes one sign

At the end of 2022, I was asked to make a set of props for a local theater’s production of Christmas Belles. Being unable to make many props for the Halloween season, I jumped at the opportunity to do something creative. For this prop, I used PVC pipes and a foam board to fashion a North Pole sign to decorate the Santa’s workshop scene of the play.

• One seventeen-inch wooden disk
• One 1 ¼” cap socket
• Three 1 ¼” coupling joints
• Four ½” wood screws
• One 1 ¼” x 6’ PVC pipe
• One roll of 1 ½” painter’s tape
• One 10 oz. can of interior/exterior, fast-drying spray paint in glossy red
• One 10 oz. can of interior/exterior, fast-drying spray paint in glossy white
• One sheet of white glittery drape (roughly 32” x 40”)
• Twelve to fourteen feet of faux evergreen garland
• One sheet of foam (at least 12” x 17”)
• One 8 oz. can of exterior paint in flat white*
• One 4 oz. bottle of all-purpose tacky glue*
• Two strings of white battery-powered LED lights
• Twenty light covers in the shape of green leaves
• Four feet of steel wire
• One piece of 8”x 11.5” copy paper with North Pole printed on it
• Four feet of plaid ribbon
• A random assortment of bells and pinecones
• One 1.48 oz. bag of large, white glittery snow

1. Measure and mark the center of the wooden disk and then use a two-inch bit to drill a hole into the wood. Because this will serve as the sign’s base, I drilled all the way through for additional stability; however, depending on your sign’s weight, you can go just halfway through the disk.

2. Use a 1/8 bit to drill four holes into one of the coupling joints. You want to ensure they are evenly spaced and about half an inch from the edge. Following this, coat the portion that will rest inside the hole with glue and gently hammer it into the opening, guaranteeing the joint rests level in the hole.

3. Drill the wood screws into the four holes made in step two. This will help lock the coupler into the hole and stabilize it. Although this may seem excessive, I wanted the prop as secure as possible because it was going to be moved on an off stage during each performance.

4. Measure, mark, and cut the PVC pipe into three two-foot sections and, with the remaining two couplers, join them together, adding them to the base to form the sign’s pole and topping it with the cap socket. This will produce a pole roughly seven feet high (for a shorter or taller pole, you can adjust the measurements of each section).  

5. On a newspaper-lined surface in a well-ventilated area, give the pole one or two even coats of glossy white paint. After allowing the paint to fully dry, use the painter’s tape to form the stripes, starting at the top and carefully wrapping it downward in a corkscrew motion. How thick you want the stripes depends on the size of the tape that you use.  

6. Once the pole is wrapped, apply one or two even coats of glossy red paint to the exposed areas. After letting the paint fully dry, carefully remove the tape. Since this prop was meant to be seen from afar, I didn’t worry too much if the contrast between the red and white stripes was not perfect. You, though, can clean this up with a black line if the prop is going to be seen up close.  

7. Utilize the remaining white spray paint to coat the wooden base. Then, cut a 24” x 24” square of glittery drape, bunch it up around the base, and glue it down. For visual interest, I created folds and mounds to make it look like fake snow, but you can leave it smooth if that adheres to your chosen aesthetic.

8. Beginning at the top of the pole, wrap the evergreen garland around it and utilize small dabs of hot glue to hold it in place. How much greenery you will need is dependent on how dense you want the coverage. I went with something relatively minimal to not overpower the prop, which means I used eight feet of garland. If you plan for a thicker coverage, you will need even more.

9. Cut a sheet of foam into a 12” x 17” rectangle to form the sign. These dimensions, of course, can always be altered to cater the prop to your needs. Because I liked the details it gave without having to shape them myself, I used the lid to a Styrofoam cooler.  

10. Coat the board with at least one layer of white exterior paint to protect it from melting when applying the spray paint. After this, use copy paper and painter’s tape to section off what will become the space for the sign’s lettering and, on a newspaper-lined surface in a well-ventilated area, use the remaining red spray paint to color the sign’s back and outer edges.

11. Trace the outlines of the battery packs for the LED lights onto the back of the sign and then form two rectangular holes about half an inch deep to accommodate them. After gluing the packs in place, make a hole on either side and use them to feed the lights through.

12. String the lights around the border of the sign, applying small dabs of hot glue to hold them in place. Because the strings I used were rather short, I had to employ two to cover the entire border, but you can streamline this process (and step eleven) by using just one long strand.

13. Cover the cords for the lights with the remaining garland (roughly three to four feet). One of the major reasons I used the cooler lid was because it had a nice trench where I could nestle the garland and lights. This can also be achieved by cutting a half-inch border around the sign using a sharp blade or soldering tool. Also, to soften the lights’ glow and enhance the sign’s visual appeal, I covered each bulb with green leaf-shaped covers.  

14. Cut the wire into two twenty-four-inch sections, make four small holes in the center of the sign, and feed the wires through them to create loops which will be used in step seventeen to attach the sign to the pole.

15. Cut a 9” x 14” rectangle of glittery drape and glue it to the inner section of the sign. Following this, center the North Pole printout on the drape and glue it in place.   

16. Cut the ribbon into two eight-inch sections and two twelve-inch sections and glue them around the copy paper to form a border. After this, adhere clusters of bells and pinecones in the corners of the sign. Lastly, lightly coat the draping on either side the copy paper with glue and sprinkle large glitter on it for additional detail.

17. Once all the decorative elements are attached to the sign, slide the pole through the wire loops and, once the sign is at your desired height, glue it in place, tightening the loops to help secure it. I used hot glue for this process, but you can use superglue for a sturdier hold.

18. Because the sign needed to be easy to move between scenes, I did not want to weigh it down with additional details, like ornaments or fake present; however, if you plan to make it a stationary prop, you can add these elements to elevate the festive theme.

*You will not use the entire bottle’s content for this project.