|
Your
Halloween Graveyard
For true Halloween enthusiasts, a spooky looking old Halloween
graveyard is the highlight and centerpiece of all
outdoor or even indoor Halloween decorations. But building a realistic
looking Halloween graveyard can get expensive, but once
bought, you have it forever. To help spread out the
cost, you can start small and add-on a little more every
year, making it bigger and better.
For
detailed information on constructing a Halloween
Graveyard
or Halloween Cemetery, visit the
Halloween Graveyard
website.
Graveyard Fence
and Entranceway
A Halloween graveyard without a spooky old fence
surrounding it is like a pumpkin patch with no pumpkins.
The classic type of fence is the gothic style wrought
iron fence, but the real thing is very expensive. The
trick is to create a fence that looks realistic, but has
a low cost and can be stored easily. There are two ways
to go, you can build your own fence or buy one. Below is
one example of a store bought Halloween fence.
Gothic
Style Fence
 If you don't have the time, tools, skill
or energy to build your own cemetery fence, there is an off
the shelf solution available. The "Cemetery Fence Halloween Prop"
is a plastic cemetery fence that is an easy way to make
your front yard look like a graveyard. Use it to enclose
a border around a cemetery, haunted house scene or even
indoors for a Halloween party or for those that don't
have a yard.
A single package includes two separate fence sections, each measuring roughly
eighteen inches wide by thirty inches high for a total of
thirty-six inches in length.
These individual sections snap together easily so that you can create a
fence just about any shape and size you want. Each set retails for
around $20.00
 We
assembled a wonderful fifteen foot wide by nine
foot deep Halloween graveyard using fifteen sets of
these Halloween decorations. We used five sets for the back, three sets for
each side and four sets for the front, which left an
opening for the entrance way.
You can
even build a small graveyard for indoor use using as few
as eight sections. This is great for creating an indoor
centerpiece as one of your main Halloween decorations for a Halloween
party.
For simulating the ground, we first
cut a piece of
inexpensive brown colored carpet to the shape of the
inside of the fence and laid it on the floor. Then spread
either Spanish Moss or decorative wood chips over the
top of it. Artificial vines can be intertwined in the
fencing to add realism. Black felt or
Creepy Cloth can be hung on the wall behind
the graveyard scene to add to the atmosphere.
Graveyard Entrance
Every
Halloween cemetery needs an entrance way for
authenticity, even if you don't intend to let people
enter it. For ours, we used the "Collapsing
Cemetery Archway" Halloween decoration, because of its spooky design and low cost compared to
other Halloween entry ways.
The set
includes a painted “cemetery” sign and two columns. The
columns are made from a wire frame, covered with a
non-woven painted fabric, allowing it to collapse for
easy storage. Assembled, this great Halloween decoration
measures five-foot nine inches wide by seven-foot ten
inches tall. Can be used indoors or outdoors. Available at
Halloween
Effects
Halloween Tombstones
 The
first step to creating an impressive Halloween graveyard is to use
as many tombstones as you can and are practical for the
space you have set aside for your display. Don't
overload the scene with too many! For a small graveyard
scene we only use three to five tombstones.
Try to buy better quality
tombstones of different styles if you can, they look much more realistic
than less expensive ones and will last longer since they
can take more abuse.
Outdoors, use dirt to make burial mounds where your tombstones
will be. If you have a supply of dirt, you can build up
three to six inch high mounds in front of some of the
tombstones. Just
remember, you'll need to remove all that
extra dirt after Halloween.
As a final touch, you can scatter leaves, twigs and
branches around the area to give it an untended look.
For an indoor cemetery, you can spread Spanish Moss
around the base of the gravestones.
For lots of tips and ideas for
using gravestones visit the
Halloween Tombstones
website.
You can buy Halloween Tombstones
at
The Halloween Connection
Enhancements
There are many types
of Halloween decorations that be used to make your
graveyard look even spookier. Below are a few that we
use.
Spider Webs
 Using
those white
stretchable spider webs that come in a bag are a great
way to enhance the look of the scene, but can be a bit
difficult to work with. Add just a very thin veil over
the Halloween decorations inside the fence.
Check out
this great article that shows how to use
Stretchable Spider Webs. Once the fake spider
web is up, add some small, light-weight plastic spiders
to it.
Raven
Perching a fake raven, crow or owl on the fence or a
tombstone looks great. You can use tape or twist ties to
attach them to the fence or perch one on a tombstone.
These artificial birds can usually be bought at craft
stores during October.
Halloween
Lighting & Effects
 For an eerie effect illuminate your graveyard with blue
or green lights. We think blue light looks ghostly,
while green light looks more ghoulish.
For small areas or to illuminate particular Halloween
decorations or props, we use colored fluorescent FEIT Party
Light bulb's (twist type) mounted in parabolic
clamp-on shop lights and direct the light either from
above and down onto the scene or at ground level
outward depending on the effect we want to create.
FEIT Party
Light bulbs are available in a variety of colors and can
be purchased at your local hardware store. For
larger areas or where we need more light, we use colored
halogen flood light bulbs. These produce a lot more
light, but also get a lot hotter.
Halloween
Sound Effects
 We use
one or more portable CD players, set on continuous play, to add
background music and a variety of sound effects to our Halloween graveyard
to enhance the atmosphere.
There's a large
selection of Halloween related sound
effect CD's available that have spooky outdoor type sounds
suitable for a graveyard.
You can
even use your
computer to create your own
custom CD's. Check out the
Halloween Graveyard website for
more graveyard music and sound effects suggestions.
|
