Message Boards

Hey all..

My wife and I are nuts about Halloween decorateing, what started out 10 years ago as decorateing for my kids Jr High Halloween party at our home soon soon got way out of hand and 2 years later turned into a full blown Haunted house display that we put on for free every year for the trick or treaters. The Idea originally was to give the kids a small challenge, if they wanted the candy they had to navagate the haunted maze to get to it,, think those first couple of years it was a vary simple maze and like 5 displays covered by 1 tent on our front lawn.

Starting in 2008 things have really exploded, weve gone from 1) 20 X 20 and 1) 10 x 10 tent to 1) 20 X 20 and 5) 10 X 10 tents and around 14 displays that cover our front lawn, gardens and drive way .. weve even gone from having the displays open only on Halloween to being open 3 nights, usually the 29 - 31st of October. this year how ever we are thinking of being open mabey 4 nights as well as haveing the displays open during the day for people to go through...

The only thing that has not changed though is that the display is free to go through.. last year after spending almost $2000.00 on displays the wife talked me into puting a dontion pumpkin out and a portion of the money we raised we donated to a local childrens charity here in my home town.

What Im getting at with all this rambeling is I was wondering is there any one else out there as crazy about Halloween as my family is ?? and what are some of your favorite things to do for Halloween....

Going to add 4 videos to this post of our displays for 2009 and 2010, day and night time walk throughs for both years the displays change every year...

Haunted Tents 2009 day time

Haunted tents 2009 nigh time

Haunted Tents 2010 day time

Haunted tents 2010 night time

I used to carve about 10 very large pumpkins and or gourds with fancy faces. Now I have scaled back but I'm looking for decorations that I can keep from year to year. The foam pumpkins that you can buy and carve are smaller than I used to carve. I've always wanted one of those life sized figures that are animated, for example frankenstein or the waiter whose head comes off--but how can I justify the price? My neighbor throws a big Halloween party and has gotten more elaborate each year--it's hard to scale back when it's so much fun to decorate!

Yeah it does.

I know this year we are adding some home made animated props to our display but even still after buying materials and using stuff we have around the house its still going to run $100.00 to $150.00 per Prop.. one thing we have started doing though is going through our attic and pulling out old furnature, picture frames and other stuff that proble should of gone to a yard sale ages ago and using that in some of our displays.. can usually fix that type of stuff up for under $50.00 and make it look scary

Amazing wonder display.

Thanks Jakes mom -)


As a side note wonder if those vid of mine will caputure HGTV eye, lol would love to make one of there halloween shows come october -)

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Ltol,

I was chatting with a gal while choosing Halloween sox and she said her hubby loves H'ween so much that he semi-buries himself in the front yard so he can spool the kids.....do you go that far????????? That sureeeeee would scare me!

with the amount of people we get through in one night id end up getting trampled -) besides thee are plenty of dark corners to be found in the maze,,, surpriseing how load people will scream just by me saying hello to them as they pass by lol

We used to have a neighborhood guy who dressed up in a complete Dracula costume on Halloween. He would wait until there was a lull in trick or treaters, hide on the side behind a bush and then ring the bell. When you looked out there was no one there so you would open the door and then he would jump out from behind the bush, etc and scare you!

well it took me about a week but finally got a face book page set up for my display called: Haunted Tents. lol what else huh -)

Put up some videos of prior years displays as well as some pictures of current halloween props ive been working on lately and some of the store bought stuff for this year. even posted dates and times in the event area for this years haunt .....

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Ltol,

forgot to put the link in for it lol


Haunted Tents

we don't since we never get t or t'ers...too busy a street..but in what we don't my coz-inlaw
does. she collects pieces from dept 57, and has a complete town, for both halloween and christmas...they also have a costume party...

so now we help hand out candy for one of our kids..we sort of dress up, and enjoy...

When I was growing up at most people would put out a carved pumpkin or scarecrow. Then in the 80's I made my first visit to PA in October - OMG!!! Wow, those folks in Lancaster certainly did not just put out a pumpkin!

Now it has moved South and we see more and more Halloween decorations.

My son started me with decorating over the top for every holiday....I figured my last child....why not. Our entire yard is filled with decorations, lights, home-made and purchased decorations. My only problem is I can't get those darn tombstones to stand up! I even tried gluing them to boxes, filling the boxes with rocks- and all the rain just disintegrated the boxes.

My kids are dressing up and can't wait to see how much candy they can get. That's what Halloween is for them. I don't let them be anything scary. I've got a batman, Mario, and a rabbit this year. The only Halloween decorations I have are three pumpkins the kids picked out. I glued wiggly eyes on them and then we made bright, happy, sparkly masks for them. After Halloween, the masks are taken off and they become fall decorations. All my other decorations have to do with fall and harvest.


kenya