A reader sent this recipe in to me, so I thought I’d share it with you. I’ve never made these, but I can’t wait until later this week to try it. All you need is an eyeball jello mold, and a few ingredients. You can also use round ice cube trays or even the round artist pallets that you can buy in any art store. As long as you clean it thoroughly you can use anything that has the right shape.

Ingredients:

3 tsp of unflavored gelatin

Food coloring (blue, green, red and yellow)

Cooking Oil Spray

3 Tbsp low fat milk

1 1/2 Tbsp sugar

1/2 Tbsp imitation lemon or coconut extract. (your choice)

Cold and boiled water

Straw, cotton ball, toothpick and a container with a small spout for filling.

Instructions for Whites of Eyes:

Spray a small amount of cooking oil inside of the cavity of the plastic mold. Put 2  1/2 tsp of gelatin in a bowl. Add 1/4 cup boiling water. Stir until completely dissolved. Add 1/4 cup cold water and stir well. Stir in 3 Tbsp of low fat milk, 1/2 Tbsp of extract, and 1 1/2 Tbsp of sugar. Stir well. Using a container with a small spout, pour the liquid into the mold. Place the mold in the refrigerator overnight. After the gelatin solidifies, take out the white eyes.

Iris Eye Color Instructions:

Put 1/2 tsp gelatin in a small bowl. Add 1 Tbsp boiling water. Stir until dissolved. Stir in 1 Tbsp cold water. Add a drop or two of any food coloring that you desire, and stir. Use a straw to fill the iris craters by first dipping one end of the straw into the liquid. Then, place your thumb over the other end of the straw to trap the liquid in the straw. Release the liquid from the straw into the iris until it is filled. The iris will solidify in the refrigerator within minutes.

Making the Pupil in the Eye:

Mix the following food colors in a small bowl: 2 drops red, 1 drop blue, and one drop green.  Dip the end of a toothpick into this mixture. Jab the toothpick into the middle of the iris. Repeat the process until the pupil is large enough to see.

Making the Bloodshot Eye Effect:

Drop a few drops of red food coloring onto a plate. Take a cotton ball or a Q-tip and loosen the fibers so that they look frayed. Dip the cotton lightly into the food coloring. Lightly dab the white part of the eyeball until the desired effect is achieved.

Thanks to Ghoulgirl for this great recipe!

This caught my eye and my heart the other day. At first I was very excited by the idea of the Broomba, but then I realized that it is in fact just a Halloween decoration. We’ve all heard of the Roomba, right? The self-propelled vacuum? Well, I have hardwood floors and those don’t work well on them. I know, they say they do, but they don’t. When I saw this I thought: Yay! A self-propelled broom. Of course I didn’t stop to think how that would work. Anyway, once I realized this was not what I thought it was I was still happy. A haunted broom. It is sound-activated, so everyone will be surprised when it starts moving around cackling and playing creepy music. They also automatically change direction when they hit something. So, at your next Halloween party have a bunch of these scattered around and they’ll be moving around and banging into things constantly. It would be a riot. Unfortunately these have sold out for the season. I read that they were so popular that they will probably bring them back next year. Now if only it actually did sweep up the cat hair it would be perfect.

A few weeks ago a reader told me about putting a ring of ghosts around a tree. Years ago I saw this as well, but did not think it was scary enough, so I created my own version. This has become probably the most successful and popular decoration we do in our yard. The problem we ran into was that the tree we had in our front yard was in a corner, so no way to put a ring of anything around it. So we came up with putting a large black plastic cauldron in the center. Inside we put one of those small flaming pot lights. You can also just use dry ice inside or a small fogger. Next we bought six strong garden stakes about 48″ long and six 6-8″ Styrofoam balls. We then put the stakes in the ground and pushed the Styrofoam balls onto the tops of the stakes to look like a head. I personally did not think the white fabric was all that scary, so I found some cheap black cloth at the fabric store and bought six yards. I think it cost $1.99/yd. I cut the fabric into six pieces and then draped each head and stake with it. Not completely over their head like a ghost, but more of hooded cloak. Once I figured out how I wanted the fabric to sit I glued it down to the heads. I then safety pinned the fabric right below the head and then a couple more times all the way down to keep the fabric closed. I pulled up a corner from each one and then the one next to it and tied them together. This makes them look like they are holding hands. When I was done I also added some small cuts to the bottoms of the fabric, so it looked tattered. We then decided this wasn’t scary enough and wanted some sort of creepy music. We ended up downloading some scary sounding monk chanting onto a CD. We hid a CD player in the bushes, turned on the flaming cauldron and ta da creepy Devil Worshipers. Later we decided to spray paint the Styrofoam balls black, which made it look even scarier. Every year we pull this out and it is by far the one thing we get the most comments on. I even get a little chill when I walk by and hear the moaning chanting monks. Thanks Beautiful Kind for reminding me of this project.

I’m not a big fan of those plastic Scene Setter things in general. You know, the fake-looking pictures of bookcases and skeletons sitting on sofas that you put on a wall? They never look realistic. They are kind of the lazy man’s Halloween decoration. For those of you that use them here’s a question: Do you ever have someone walk up to one and try to take something off the shelf? Does anyone ever try to sit down on that sofa next to the skeleton? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Well, unless they’re drunk, I guess. That would be pretty funny actually. I might use one then if I knew some of my guests have a tendency to drink too much. Otherwise no. Now this Sound and Lights Witch Door Decor is a different animal all together. This is really cool and I would totally hang this up. First off, it looks scary which is already far and above the traditional scene setters. Secondly, it has motion activated sound and lights. The sounds are of a witch laughing and cackling and the eyes light up. Yes, I realize no one will mistakenly try to walk down the hall through the door. Unless of course there is liquor involved then anything can happen. For $14.50 it’s a cheap decoration that really sets a mood.

Years ago I visited a restaurant in New York called the Jekyll & Hyde Club. I go back everytime I’m there. It’s my fav. If you haven’t been there it’s a theme restaurant, but one for the scary minded like myself. It’s Halloween year round, it’s a total tourist trap and I love it!. The food is okay, but you don’t go for the food. You go for the ambiance. It’s decorated like a haunted house with a different theme for each of the 4 floors. Throughout the day they do live shows on the main floor and it’s a riot. Well, anyway one time I was there I sat near the werewolf head and it taunted me throughout our meal. I absolutely loved this effect and have desperately tried to recreate it for the store without success. The problem is you have to have someone on the other side of the wall that can see who is in front of the head at all times. I can’t hire someone just for that! I’m still waiting for an animatronic one that will at least say some different things, but so far nothing. I found this website where you can build your own Werewolf Head that doesn’t talk pictured bottom right. The directions are so involved though. You would need to be an artist to pull this off or you could buy the Werewolf pictured below left and be done with it. It’s expensive, but I know I’d screw it up if I tried to make one.

A while back I blogged about some wall mounted hand hooks. I found these Spooky Wall Hands the other day and they are far superior in my mind. Either ones are very creepy, but these are just a couple of steps up on the creepy scale. This reminds me of the movie Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. If you remember when the kids and parents originally go into the factory they have to hang up their coats. When they go to hang them on the hooks the hand hooks grab them. I always thought that was so cool and I still desperately want them. This is the closest I’ve seen. Well, visually anyway. These look like they are ready to reach down and grab your coat. They come in a set of two hands for $29. One palm-up and one palm-down pose. Personally I’m going to cover my wall in them!

There are many things that we have tried to do over the years for parties and have only been moderately successful with. Every year I get some crazy idea and then it’s a challenge to come up with a way to do it. My poor husband is often stuck doing the more mechanical type things since he’s better at it than I am. A few years ago I got the idea to make a ghost that looks like it’s going through a window. We finally got it to work with a cut up light weight prop and heavy-duty suction cups. The only problem was the weight. Trying to get something light enough that the suction cups could hold it. Everyone was always impressed with it, but I was never quite satisfied. Well, lo and behold they now make this exact prop called Light Up Ghost Through Window. This one even lights up! There are some mixed reviews of this product on various sites. Honestly though if people knew how difficult this is to make they would keep their big pie-hole shut and be happy it exists. I know I am!

If you’re going to decorate for Halloween you need spiders and lots of them. The more the creepier I always say. Anyway, some years ago we decided we wanted to find 2 giant spiders to put on the roof of our store for Halloween. We wanted to make them look like they were crawling down the outside of the building. After spending a lot of time on the internet looking around we found that scary spiders of that size just didn’t exist. My husband proceeded to make some out of black PVC that turned out really cool, but probably wouldn’t last beyond the one season. Of course that was a year that we got a lot of snow, so who knows. I still wish I could find the perfect spider, but it just doesn’t exist. The few that are available are more cartoony than scary. Now I have a new idea. I saw these Monstrous Spiders and they are the creepiest ones I have ever seen. They are 3′ long and the eyes light up. Not as large as I would like, but they’ll do the trick. A few of theses hanging down the side of the walls will creep everyone out and piss off the neighbors. It’s a win win situation.

When you are setting up your haunted house it is important that you don’t forget the bathroom. There are quite a few things that you can do in there. One of my favorites is actually very simple. Get some red craft paint and print in large letters on the mirror Redrum with the d and the second r written backwards like it was in The Shining. I do this whenever I have a Halloween party and it really freaks people out. Another thing you can do is this shower curtain. Not another bloody shower curtain! I know I have covered a few of these in the past, but this shower curtain has a twist.  When your guests walk into the bathroom they see a shower curtain with blood splatters and the silhouette of a man wielding a knife. That could be pretty scary on it’s own. As they walk further into the bathroom suddenly they hear the music from Psycho along with blood curdling screams. It all works with a motion activated sound box that runs on batteries. The whole thing costs only $19.98, so it’s really a no-brainer. It would be too noisy for me to live with this year round, but for Halloween it’s fantastic.

Every time I have a Halloween party I make punch with ice hands and put it in one of those huge black plastic cauldrons. The one thing I recommend though is finding a large bowl or pot to put inside. It can’t fit too snugly. This will allow you to put some warm water and dry ice at the bottom of your cauldron, so the smoke will flow out through the gaps. Doing it this way means the dry ice will never be in the punch and you won’t have to worry about your guests touching it. To make the ice hands you will need some surgical gloves that are not powdered. These can be purchased at most drug stores. Rinse out two gloves, fill with water and tightly tie them shut with some string. Lie them flat in your freezer and let freeze for 2 days. Run a small amount of warm water over the gloves to loosen them. Be careful when removing the glove. Use scissors to cut away if necessary. If you lose a finger don’t worry. It makes it even creepier.

The punch can be any recipe you like really. I always use the recipe below and you can choose to add vodka or not. I usually don’t for the people that aren’t drinking.

1             96 oz. Orange Juice
4             48 oz. cans Pineapple Juice
4             2 liter bottles of Sprite or 7Up
1             1.75 liter bottle of vodka

Mix well. Put the warm water and dry ice at the bottom of your cauldron and then put your pot/bowl inside. Pour in your punch and then add your ice hands. The hands floating in the punch is really creepy and your guests will love it.