My favorite holiday, and IMO the most fun holiday, is Halloween and time is running out. Have you designed any new props for your display this year? Made plans for new Halloween purchases? Tell me all about it and please post links to any previous displays! Here is a link to the latest greatest Halloween Costume Thread courtesy of our beloved vanilla.
By coincidence, today I made a Word document of The Raven. I put a picture of Poe on the top of it.
I suppose I should plan a vacation around Samhain.
I love Poe. And where would you go on your vacation?
Lisa Ann: I’d go to northern Washington. My best fiend lives up there, and there’s bound to be a good party.
Yeah, Poe is The Master! In GQ, I’ve asked where to find a bust of him. Have you ever noticed nobody reads The Raven right? Most people are like, “Yada, yada, yada, yada. Yada, yada, yada, yada.” It’s not supposed to be like that. It’s supposed to flow! I practice it as a dramatic reading from time to time. I read it as if I am relating a story to some other person, starting out conversationally and ending in bitterness. (I wonder how many people really read it? Do they know how tragic this figure is?) Too bad I’m not an actor. Maybe I can direct a reading on tape?
Incidentally (and relating to the OP), here is my best Halloween thing. I call him “Bob”.
Wow, Johnny, I’m impressed. How did you make it?
As I mentioned in ResIpsa’s thread, I’mprobably just going as a belly dancer again this year. I wore a lovely maroon silk 18th ballgown last year and it was too blasted hot to wear while dancing. I’ve got the skirt and hip belt with fringe and beaded applique from several years ago (remind me never to do applique again) and I’ll make a matching purple choli for the top. Perhaps I’ll make another skirt, so I can layer them… hmm… and a veil… and some handflowers…
I’m official-Hallowe’een-costume-gal for my friends, so if anyone wants anything unusual this year I’ll post about it. I think my SO will be wearing his Aragorn/Legolas crossover outfit and probably some of his chainmail. Right. I must finish his outfit…
Lissla Lissar: Actually, I bought it at an after-Halloween sale a couple of years ago. I’d like to get into prop making, but I don’t have a workshop. One thing I’d love to have is a severes head – my own! I saw some great silicon “ice” (also works as shattered glass) at the L.A. Film Expo. My own head on ice! That would be great!
Either Santa Clause or Superman. Have made not the slightest motion toward a costume for either.
The Boba Fett costume is something like 80% done. I just finished assembling the chest/back armor today, which is all nicely glued onto a vest. I have the cape, bodysuit, helmet (most important item, natch), gloves, one of the belts, codpiece and kneepads. I’m special ordering the wrist gauntlets and jetpack as soon as my paycheck arrives.
At some point, I’ll need to special order Boba’s boots (I’m wearing regular boots and hope nobody looks at my feet), gloves (I’m using Ace hardware ones that look OK), and ammo belt. And, if I get the chance, a working Slave-1 replica. 
I have three costumes to make (fella bilong missus flodnak doesn’t want one). Flodjunior wants to be a race car driver again, so I just need details from him (any particular racer, what color, etc.) and I can start sewing. It’s a bit harder with totnak, since he’s only two - he doesn’t really understand what we’re talking about. So I have to pick out something for him. He likes Dorothy the Dinosaur from the Wiggles, and admired the dinosaur costume in the Corduroy’s Halloween book, so I think he’ll go as Toddlersaurus Rex. (Actually he likes Henry the Octopus even better, but my rule is that if I’m going to sew the kids’ costumes, they should convert to playclothes after the holiday is over, and I can’t see him wearing eight-legged plaid pants to preschool…)
That leaves me, and I have no idea. I’ll be wearing it to a kids’ party, so it shouldn’t be too terribly scary or too obscure. I’ll think of something while I’m sewing the others…
Dunno yet…
I was planning on going as the Raven as I have a nice set of wings I’ve yet to wear, but since I used all my latex, I have no idea how I would attach a beak without leaving obvious “strings”.
Last year I went as Gobbolino (the witches cat with the one white paw), and the year before I went as a succubus (red dress, leather corset… cool wings which actually flapped if you pulled on the bit of hidden string… painted my entire body red for that. I love greasepaint!).
I used my wonderful latex to turn a friend of mine into a Werewolf victim… huge gaping wounds complete with bone showing through and torn muscles and tendons… (Think American Werewolf in London when dead blokey keeps reappearing…) bit of ketchup blood and it looked NASTY! hee hee!
I love Halloween, (it’s the one time of the year when I look normal) but it’s actually more of an adults holiday then a kids one in London, at least round my area!
Bob is bitchen, Johnny L.A.!
I go all-out in the front yard. (My husband thinks, or knows, I’m crazy.) And I’m only allowed to start putting out the Halloween stuff on October first, so I try to get away with fall decoration starting in September!
Two years ago I added a liquid amber Halloween Tree in a terra cotta pot. It was decorated with moss around the base of the trunk and on that a plastic skull with a light stick in it. Then in the branches, tillandsia (some call it spanish-moss, but it’s actually a minature bromeliad), orange yellow & black striped rubber snakes, bats that I made out of wire hangers and old black nylons, and my string of blinking eye lights. In front of that I placed a minature hay bale from Michael’s Crafts, unusual squash, pumpkins and indian corn, plus my crow scarecrow I got a few years ago at Rite Aid. Last year I added to it little stones with grinning faces on the base.
I also did a minature graveyard with white staked garden fencing from Home Depot and black and glow-in-the-dark spiderweb streched all over it, various sized spiders, a flashing Marcus the Carcass [sup]tm[/sup] sticking out of the ground, my old painted cardboard tombstone (“Yul B. Next”), more moss, and one of my spotlights behind it! Some years I put my old vulture my friends gave me in highschool on top of the tombstone, but I think I also have an owl from my mother-in-law.
My husband repeatedly stopped this little two-year-old girl from up the street from carting off skeleton bones a couple years ago - the neighborhood kids get a real kick out of it, almost as much as I do, and I look each day of October for a new prop! I try to make a lot of stuff, but I’ve spent a lot, too.
This year I plan to do a kitchen table dinner scene, which can be viewed by the trick-or-treaters on the porch, complete with disgusting food and eerie place settings! Got any ideas?!
Oh, my. That’s dedication to Hallowe’een. I’m impressed.
Bother. The SO has been subtlely hinting that he’s going to wear his Legolas/Aragorn outfit instead of a suit at our wedding. Hmm. I’m not sure what I think about that- he looks gorgeous in the long Aragorn duster-coat, at least, but the rest… and a sword? Is it appropriate? Will our relatives flip?
Hmm… no, Octavia, you CAN’T have him! No! Find your own guy who’s-willing-to-be-frequently-dressed-up-in-historic-costume. 
It’s sounds very sexy and romantic to me and it is your wedding.
Lisa:
Grapes can easily be painted to look like eyeballs. Once they dry, squish 'em a little to give them the extra gross look. (Or, even more fun: squish 'em and let the juice drip into your mouth in full view of the kids.)
Use a dark red liquid in wineglasses for blood.
Human head in a dinner platter. Surround it with various goodies: fingers, hearts, intestine, etc.
I just got an okay catalog in the mail today…here’s the online version: http://www.shindigz.com/shop.cfm?Page=dir2&SecID=12&SubsecID=62
And Martha Stewart is always good for cool Halloween stuff: http://www.marthastewart.com/page.jhtml?type=shop-cat&id=cat43&navLevel=3&navHistory=cat3%2Bcat13&site=
Have fun!
PS Looks like Martha’s site isn’t that great. Either it’s too early or she’s preoccupied with other things. (The SEC perhaps?)
Thanks. Res and Sue.
I thought of buying the most unusual sounding herbs for my dinner scene - Devil’s Bit Scabiosa succisa, Dragon’s Blood Daemonorops draco, Moonwort Botrychium spp., etc.
Great site - I like the castle decorations and that is perfect for my theme, if I can convince hubby that $200+ is a great deal.
I am embarrassed to admit that my first bulletin board was Martha’s. Strictly Halloween, you understand. The only things I stencil are body outlines and pentagrams on the walkways.
I’m going to thinksnow’s annual Halloween party in drag. I’m needing a DoperWimmin volunteer to help with makeup and the like…
…anyone?
Where are you, Superdude?
Update - I am making Halloween pins with Foamies. It’s a lot of fun. They are different shapes and colors made out of foam and some have adhesive surfaces, so no glue!
Any more dopers getting ready for the most fun holiday of the year?
Hmmmm…where was I…
I’m still waiting for my Fett gauntlets to come in the mail. I’d order a jetpack if the owner would let me know how much it will cost to UPS them (argh!). I have to get started on sewing his belt pouches soon.
Sigh…how many days away are we?
Oh…I’ve noticed they’re selling “Halloween Villages” much like Christmas villages now. On the one hand, that’s just plain silly…Halloween is a day, not a season like Christmas. On the other hand…COOL.