LaGhosti Theatre

As I mentioned in an earlier post, we went on a bit of a hiatus while we were building on our platforms.  During that time, we discovered a website for an auction house that happened to have multiple sets of buildings for sale.  One of those lots had the super-rare LaGhosti Theatre!  The price was too good to pass up.  We bid and we won!  We grabbed a couple of other sets as well, but we were really excited about our new Theatre.  We never thought that we would be getting LaGhosti so soon because in the past when we saw it, it was well over $100, and sometimes over $200.

If you catch yourself near 56 Dead Creek Swamp, be sure to catch the main attraction – it is a SCREAM!

Lafitte’s Cove

We wanted to add a cove, a skull cave, and other great additions to our village.  I have added a few pictures of the area as we are working on them.  We have Lafittes Cove which will house the Spooky Schooner in front of a spooky skull cave.  Inside the cave may lie some secrets to come later.  Just like I described below for Grimsly’s Cliff, to create the block of foam to stat from, we cut a 4×8 foot sheet of foam insulation into small sections and glue them together before carving out the form of the cave form the block.  Once the cave was carved out, texture was added and boulders were cut into the cave.  The picture of the lake (still under construction),and the skull cave are attached for reference.  When we have the completed final display complete we will post the final pictures.

Grimsley Cliff

First, I would like to start off by saying when I say “we” I am really referring to my wife.  She is by far the more creative one in this venture.  She is the master carver and painter.  I just help where I can.  In any event, we wanted to tier our display more this year.  This all started with the idea that we wanted to include a large cliff upon which Grimsley Manor would sit.

We were not able to locate any good blocks of foam like we were hoping.  However, we were not.  Instead, we picked up some 4′ x 8′ sheets of foam board insulation.  We cut into multiple sheets of foam and glued them together.  After stacking the foam boards to the height we desired, we started carving.  After first creating the texture of the sides of the foam, we started carving the stones on the side of the cliff.  We also carved in steps curving around the large cliff winding its way to the Grimsly Manor.  We do not have the tool shed or the garage yet, but we have plans for placing them at different locations on the cliff.  Below is the cliff and the cliff with Grimsly’s manor atop it.

The carving took longer than one would think.  Due to this being multiple sheets glued together, it needed a lot of work.  Let us know what you think about the work so far!  We still have to put some highlights on the boulder and steps, but as you can see, it is nearly complete.

Return of the Swamp!

So, first I would like to apologize for the somewhat hiatus from blogging the has occurred over the last month or so.  We have been super busy with working on platforms and other decorations for our display.  I will post some updates on the construction of the structures that we are building for the display soon.

Also, a big thank you to the shout out from 56 Skeletons’ page.  https://56skeletons.wordpress.com/  I hope the author of that site does not mind us referring to him simply as “Skelly”.  After stumbling upon Skelly’s blog, we were energized by his website.  The way Skelly describes the details of the pieces and provides the interesting back stories, we knew that Skelly was stricken with the Halloween bug just like us.  We felt compelled to start our own blog!  I recommend you travel over to 56 Skeletons’ blog and check out what they have to offer.

We hope to feature a different area of our display frequently going forward as we inch ever so closer to Halloween.

Stay tuned…