The leaves are changing, the air is a bit cooler, people are wearing masks… oh… wait… Anyways, as Halloween nears, we scramble to get our spookiest decorations out for the trick or treaters and passers by to enjoy whether they're from Target, Walmart or the ever so beautiful yet expensive Spirit Halloween. While buying props is essentially the easier route, I'm looking at this year a little differently, with covid and all, and making homemade props. With homemade props, it can be a great cost effective way to enjoy some quality holiday time as well as keep you socially distanced if you choose to be. And, let's be honest, with most of the good stuff being canceled, we need about as much self made Halloween excitement that we can get now more than ever. So, from now until about a week before the big day, we will share a few simple and, mostly inexpensive, ways to create sweet Halloween props for your display. Today, I'll be starting off with a real banger by showing you how I'll be updating my scarecrows.

To start off, these are the original design pieces. They were extremely simple to make and mostly free aside from some screws, the wooden posts and the craft pumpkin heads from Joanne Fabrics that I got on sale at the end of the season a few years back. I simply carved the pumpkin faces, painted them black then dry brushed in different orange colors. Then cut holes in the bottoms of the pumpkins to jam them on top of wooden crosses I fashioned out of dead branches from the woods. I tried to build rib cages out of other branch pieces which mostly just looked "okay." To add a little creepy filler, I threw some ripped up fishnet "spooky cloth" from Dollar Tree over them then sprayed the wood black with a can of spray paint. I also used a spool of some Dollar Tree rope to wrap in different areas. It's a very simple design which works decently in light and better at night with a fog machine and some eerie lights to add to the mix but after a few years of the same old thing, I decided it was time for an update.

Ultimately, I settled on using plastic skeletons instead of tree branches. The skeletons are obviously not homemade but aren't the most expensive item to get either. Plus they're little more durable and less likely to fall apart over the years. Walmart, as well as Lowes, has them for around $25 a pop. I bought 3 of them from Oriental Trade online for roughly the same price before shipping when they were doing their skeleton sale. Once the skeletons arrive, I'll be corpsing them to achieve a rotting fleshy look. There are a few different ways to go about corpsing an object, I'll be showing you one way of many. Onto the materials.

- For this tutorial I used the following materials:

- Plastic Skeleton (I purchased 3 from Oriental Trade online)

- 2 Cans of Black Rustoleum Matte Spray Paint

- .7MIL Painters Drop Cloth (I got the big 10'x100' for $8)

- A Heat Gun ($20 at Wal-Mart)

- Green, Brown, and Yellow Craft Paint

- Wood Screws

- One 8' 2"x4"

- One 8' 2"x2"

- Cheap Rope Spools (Walmart and Dollar Tree)

- Cheap medium sized paint brush

- Can Matte Clear Coat

STEP 1: I started by making the crosses. The idea here is not to be hammering the crosses into the ground so we will make some that can be screwed onto a post that is already in the ground to avoid damaging the actual prop. So I cut each of the 2x4's directly in half. Messing around with the skeletons proved to be annoying as fuck the whole way through without something to fasten them to, so making the crosses first proved to be a good strategy. Trust me.

STEP 2: Remove the skull and the arms. If you're using the skulls, skip removal but definitely remove the arms. By removing the arms we offer ourselves a better range of pose ability. I also removed the hands from the arms and turned them around to make them look normal in certain poses. These things can be fickle and look sort of stiff the way they come. For mine, they came bolted together so I took a wrench and loosened the nuts from the bolts. The heads were connected by 2 screws and were easy to remove as well.

STEP 3: Once the arms were removed I started to mount the skeletons to their posts. The rib cages snap together and are easily removed so I pulled them off in order to get a clear shot from the back to screw the bones directly to the crosses. I also drove a screw in the tail bone to and fastened it down for extra support. After they were mounted, I decided what I would do with the arms for each one. I wanted them all to be different so one has his arms dangled in front, another has them tied up by the wrists and the last one I wanted to make it look like he was bound and stuck to himself like he was cocooned. While it would be fine for them to all have the same poses, I wanted each one to have a different story behind their torment. I used the rope from Dollar Tree to keep the arms where I wanted them by the way. Once we cover these things you won't be able to tell where the rope is underneath.

STEP 4: Once you have your skeletons stable and where you want them, start covering with the plastic. I had to squeeze the plastic between the cross to get it on the skeletons but it wasn't too hard to manage. I'd start with a layer or two. I went wild with one and it took quite a while to get it to melt down before you could see the skeletal details underneath. Also, cover the entire thing; feet, hands, arms, legs, torso, spine, skull (if using), everything that you're using needs to be covered.

STEP 5: Get out the heat gun and start blasting. Essentially, we are just shrink wrapping this thing but make sure to get some nice holes in the rib cage and throughout the entire piece. The webbiness really makes for some awesome fleshy details. Keep it interesting and play around with it. It doesn't have to look perfect.

STEP 6: When you're happy with where the plastic is, start painting. We will start with the black spray paint. This takes a little while but make sure you get all the little crevices and cracks; really cover this thing completely black. I also got some on the inside of the chest cavity so it's darker and not plastic white. Let dry.

STEP 7: Once dry, we can begin to dry brush. I mixed the green, brown and yellow together and got this pukey, swampy, snotty green color that looked awesome. Dab the brush and wipe the excess off on a paper town and paddle over the skeleton until just lightly coated. All the little details will start to pop little by little. I applied 3 coats because I went really light. If you happen to apply too much, just paint black in those spots, let dry and start again with dry brushing. Once its dry, give a nice coat of matte clear coat spray to keep the paint protected.

STEP 8: This is where you can get creative. I decided to wrap a few places with rope to add to the story of these pieces a bit. From here, there are all sorts of things you could do and use. Things like craft moss could make for some interesting affects to get and earthy weathered look. I'll be throwing some lights inside of the jackolantern heads for an extra treat.

STEP 9: Get those things in the ground. Take those 8” 2x2s and cut one end into a point. I also trimmed them about 2 feet but you really don’t have to if you want that kind of height. Slam them into the yard deep enough to keep your scarecrows from falling over and screw them together. I’m serious about getting them in the ground by the way. A good windy day will tear these suckers right out of the ground easily. Get them in about 10 to 12 inches at least. I use to make the stake part of the prop but over time, pounding the prop in started to damaged all the hard work I put into it. So, drill holes in the posts, slam em in the ground 10 to 12 inches, then drive screws threw the posts directly into your props.

And VOILA! You have yourself a sweet spooky scarecrow for your yard haunt and many more to come. Now throw some corn stalks, tombstones and some eerie green lighting up and scare all your neighbors! I hope you enjoyed this tutorial! I Invite you all to use this method and to play around with your own props. It doesn't have to be perfect, all that matters is that you keep it fun. Thanks for reading!

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Grimey