# Theme for 2018



## lilibat (Aug 10, 2015)

I don't really do a theme, ever. Sometimes I think about it but I don't have the space to store multiple themes worth of stuff. Closest I get to it is just doing little scenes around my yard so mini theme areas?


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## Wolfman (Apr 15, 2004)

Same as lilibat, here, no "theme" per se, but mini vignettes. This year it's Nightmare Images. A Giant Spider, 10' long snakes with human heads, a D.ay Care Center for Zombie babies, Living Dead Dolls, a Vortex and Larger-rhan-Life Jack O'Lantern Scarecrows.

Yes; we have a large front yard...


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## Zombie4* (Aug 29, 2015)

I'm sticking with my Area 51 theme. Im gonna tweak the alien costumes a bit. Not changing anything else....I keep telling myself????


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## VegasHaunter (Aug 9, 2016)

I tend to base my haunt on the years best Horror movies..last year was clowns because of IT. This year will be the James Wan Multiverse with the release of the Nun. And going to turn my Towering Clown into an 8 foot tall reaper. Wife has also challenged me to make an Annabelle Doll..lol. not too sure about that one


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## acanton04 (Sep 4, 2016)

Where did you get the masks? The whole setup looks awesome!


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## acanton04 (Sep 4, 2016)

Zombie4* said:


> I'm sticking with my Area 51 theme. Im gonna tweak the alien costumes a bit. Not changing anything else....I keep telling myself&#55358;&#56611;&#55357;&#56834;&#55358;&#56611;&#55357;&#56834;


The whole setup looks awesome! Where did you get the masks?


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## Zombie4* (Aug 29, 2015)

acanton04 said:


> Zombie4* said:
> 
> 
> > I'm sticking with my Area 51 theme. Im gonna tweak the alien costumes a bit. Not changing anything else....I keep telling myself��������
> ...


Thanks so much!! I got those from spirit Halloween. They were a bit pricey but they achieved the look I wanted???


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## Madame Leota (Sep 19, 2005)

I think this year I will go back to my basic cemetery and have some costumed skeletons to convey whatever theme I decide on. A few years ago, I did this with a New Orleans French Quarter theme and had skeletons dressed as musicians, a fortune teller, a pirate, and a lady of the evening. It was one of my favorite themes even though I'm not sure anyone else "got it". This year, I may go victorian if I can come up with the costumes. I want something very classic, I do know that much.


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## giantstogie (Oct 26, 2016)

This is the first year for a theme for me. I am putting out a skeleton ball. I figure I will have my skellys out and dancing with packing tape ghosts. I just need to figure out how to make them move.


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## halloween71 (Apr 22, 2007)

last two years was sleepy hollow kinda done with that for the time being.Time to dust off some slasher kings and tombstones and the undead.


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## 65Ace (Jan 29, 2015)

Sticking with my tried & true Pirate's Graveyard theme again this year.


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## Shebear1 (Jul 22, 2008)

My whole yard will be decorated in skeletons doing various everyday things - walking the skeleton dog, working the garden, pulling a skeleton boy in a wagon, etc.


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## S.O.S. (Mar 7, 2011)

Just a standard graveyard with ghosts and skeletons for me. Been years since I have done anything so I am pretty excited!


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## MichaelMyersSickHead (Mar 13, 2017)

Is it bad there are 160+ days left and I'm already worried about getting anything out at all?!?


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## Sp00ky (Apr 21, 2018)

I am working on something similar. I found a rotating turn table (fotoconic White Electric Motorized Rotating Turntable Display Stand with LED, 10 Inch/25cm Diameter, 20 Lb Centric Loading for Shop Display) on Amazon. It was able to turn with a mannequin holding up a packing tape ghost. I like it better than a hanging rotating motor, because then they don't have to hang. Still working on a frame to keep a ghost couple and skeleton+ghost up and dancing.


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## im the goddess (Mar 10, 2012)

Shebear1 said:


> My whole yard will be decorated in skeletons doing various everyday things - walking the skeleton dog, working the garden, pulling a skeleton boy in a wagon, etc.


I did that a few years ago, and loved it. I had my grown boys old battery operated Jeep in the yard with a skeleton driving and waving at passerbyers. I had another on a razor scooter being chased by a skeleton dog. I had a pirate skelton sword fighting with a viking. It was fun.


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## im the goddess (Mar 10, 2012)

I do vignettes too. Last year my boys found a triceratops skeleton at Kroger, and a smaller one at Lowes. I'm going to bring back the jeep and set up a Jurassic Park scene with an overturned jeep, a skelly hanging out of it, and dinosaurs moving in. I'll do my other things too, which include a bride and groom couple sitting in chairs underneath the tree with their skeledog. Above them, I have a skelecat on the tree branch stalking skelly birds who are on the bird feeder. I have a cemetery and I have a spider area with a pneumatic spider. I do inside too.


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## Orgarob (Sep 11, 2016)

I'm doing an asylum theme - with a Lovecraft twist. I'm still trying to figure out how I can have an escape the room within our party this year. Probably will not happen, but I can dream.....

You can see the backstory and the trailer here 

http://www.halloweenforum.com/blogs/orgarob/


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## MichaelMyersSickHead (Mar 13, 2017)

Cemetery with movie maniacs in the vicinity...inspiration from Friday the 13th, Halloween, Nosferatu, and The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari in particular.


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## kakugori (Aug 26, 2013)

I've started leaning more vintage/historical/local and then with the cemetery and skellies and grim reapers and some of the pumpkin, scarecrow, farm stuff. Last year I built a (nasty, rotten) fruit stand, this year I'm building a smoke house. It's inspired by a local true story about the guy who lived in our house. I don't expect anyone else to get it, I just have to haunt it up, but it's great to have that sort of thing to build from. Now I just need a couple of hams and some bees. Oh, and the whole building has to get built, with stinky fog spewing up the walls and out the eaves. Of course, I'm re-routing the exit and there's a flowerbed in the way.


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## McBernes (Mar 10, 2015)

I'm not sure I'll do a theme. I've never really decorated outside either. I want to give it a try this year though. I have a life sized skelly, a huge skull from Lowes and some other things that cost a bit of change and I don't feel good about putting them outside where I live. It's not a problem with violent crime or shady people dealing drugs outside my door, just some of the neighbor kids have no concept of boundaries. Sp00ky mentioned something about packing tape ghosts, I think I'll try to do something with really cheap materials like tape, cardboard and the like. That way if something happens to them I won't have lost anything too expensive to replace.


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## Shadowbat (Sep 27, 2009)

We're doing a circus theme this year for the haunt and will be tying in some things in the front yard cemetery


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## OddTodd (May 31, 2009)

We will probably just "fine tune" what we did last year - a maze with zombies, clowns and spiders. We made an elevator ride last year to get the TOTs from the "ground floor" to the "basement" power room. The elevator was just a 4' x 4' x 7' box mounted on 4 air bags with doors on one side that opened and closed and a 46' LCD TV mounted on top to add a visual. The TOTs would start with a walk down an angled hallway and enter the elevator. After they pressed a button, the doors would close and the ride to the basement began. After the elevator doors closed, a wall in the hallway leading to the elevator would swing open, so that when the elevator doors opened at the end of the ride, the "basement" power room was revealed. The elevator ride took 90 seconds from when the elevator doors closed till when they opened again. The TOTs would then go through the "basement" power room and exit through a side door to the zombie maze portion of the walk through. I think I am going to edit the elevator video and reprogram the air bag sequence to shorten the elevator ride to 30 seconds and modify the "basement" power room to improve through put.
At the end of the elevator ride, it would take too long to exit the elevator and walk 10 feet to leave through the side door. The parents of the TOTs spent too much time in the elevator after the doors opened trying to figure out how a fake elevator got them to the "basement" power room.
The "basement" power room had some old breaker panels mounted on the walls along with some Big-Lots animated power panels that would wiggle some wires, buzz and light-up. The scare was there, but it tended to drive them back towards the elevator instead of forward, towards the side door.


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## McBernes (Mar 10, 2015)

I think I've narrowed down what I want to do finally. I've figured out a way to make some pretty big cardboard spiders. You guys know those little wooden insect models? https://www.harborfreight.com/balsa-wood-insect-puzzle-40692.html.
I think I'll make spiders bats and maybe heads for floating ghosts that assemble like those puzzle things. It's not an original way of constructing props but it is cheap and fast, also I have a lot of cardboard on hand taking up space, nd I've made things using that method before. I even did it with ceramics once. I'm thinking of slipping black trash bags over them and taping them tight wiht electrical tape instead of filling the gaps with paper or foam. So i guess my theme is "basic Halloween" this year, which is fine with me.
I did occur to me to use white bags for the spiders and put glow sticks in them though. I'll have to test it and see whether or not the bags are too opaque for the lights to show. And too ghostly white spiders would be something a little different.


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## hostelbaygreekislandpass (Jun 19, 2018)

I'm more between Zombies (walking dead) and Carnival, not that much of a SW fan :/


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## Spookerstar (Jun 3, 2011)

We usually have a cemetery but with other things in there. I am thinking maybe the Skeletons could be from the movie Coco this year. Lots of bright flowers and candles decorating the graves. Skelly's playing guitar with a sombrero. Paper picados...
Hope I can find things that would hold up with the weather


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## Kwll2112 (Sep 14, 2016)

We have the same theme every year; haunted manor. It's broad enough where we have a lot of flexibility in what we can do and change. Last year, though, we spent so much time and money on new changes that we're mostly going to do what we did last year with only a few changes.


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## dane82 (Sep 24, 2012)

we had it narrowed down to Urban Legends and Classic Horror Movies, and we put it to a vote among a few of our regular attendees. Classic Horror Movies won.

edit: this is for our party, as we don't really do a proper haunt.


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## McBernes (Mar 10, 2015)

I finally made a pattern for some cardboard spiders. It I can manage making one a week or so I should be in good shape. I'll post images in the props thread.
https://www.halloweenforum.com/hall...oard-spider-pattern.html?posted=1#post2447329


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## AstorReinhardt (Sep 6, 2016)

I wanted to do a vintage theme this year but I haven't been going to yard sales/estate sales or thrifting...so I guess I wait another year...damn it.

I might just do 1980s/1990s theme again. I liked it last year.


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## Lot13 (May 27, 2014)

This year I am doing a combination of gypsy fortune teller/witch theme. Last year I did Edgar Allen Poe for my theme and it turned out to be one of my all time favorites and everyone loved it cause it was so different. I have a lot of witch props and accessories so it's back to that this year but different than before. I've done witches with witches, warlocks, wizards and done it with the Sanderson Sisters, and a couple of other ways and now doing it with gypsy fortune tellers. I have found there are many ways to change the idea with witches and use the props over again. What I have the most of is witches, ghosts, skeletons, skulls and now Edgar Allen Poe stuff so my themes rotate around those items with an occasional year of spiders, snakes, bats and rats thrown it and an occasional year of monsters. I am really looking forward to the fortune teller/witch ideas and am planning my scenes on paper now so I can start putting together in a few weeks.


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## Madame Leota (Sep 19, 2005)

Lot13 said:


> This year I am doing a combination of gypsy fortune teller/witch theme. Last year I did Edgar Allen Poe for my theme and it turned out to be one of my all time favorites and everyone loved it cause it was so different. I have a lot of witch props and accessories so it's back to that this year but different than before. I've done witches with witches, warlocks, wizards and done it with the Sanderson Sisters, and a couple of other ways and now doing it with gypsy fortune tellers. I have found there are many ways to change the idea with witches and use the props over again. What I have the most of is witches, ghosts, skeletons, skulls and now Edgar Allen Poe stuff so my themes rotate around those items with an occasional year of spiders, snakes, bats and rats thrown it and an occasional year of monsters. I am really looking forward to the fortune teller/witch ideas and am planning my scenes on paper now so I can start putting together in a few weeks.


Witches and gypsies are my absolute all time favorite things ever!  I never get tired of this particular theme!


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## Lot13 (May 27, 2014)

me too Madame Leota! To me they are the heart of halloween.


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## mdna2014 (Jul 21, 2014)

I am all decked out and loving it! So cozy...


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## lisa48317 (Jul 23, 2010)

Shebear1 said:


> My whole yard will be decorated in skeletons doing various everyday things - walking the skeleton dog, working the garden, pulling a skeleton boy in a wagon, etc.


That's hilarious & awesome! 

My skeletons are going to be trick-or-treating this year!


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## Night Gardener (Aug 3, 2018)

"Psychedelic Spiders"... is my outside theme for the last few years. Lots of creepy dead plants in the garden ( I don't cut anything down after frost lol ) with colorful rainbow-spectrum trippy and black lighting effects, *BIG* spiders and huge glittering refractive spider webs that catch all the rainbow and motion lighting. I usually scribble runes in black-light reactive chalks on the driveway and side walk, but it rains most Halloweens it rains and washes it away... In the window, a large collection of sparkly-jelly pumpkins. At the front door, a witch's foyer complete with apothecary and more "strange" plants under cloche glass. I tell the children that the spiders work so hard in my garden all year long, and that they get to come out and party on Halloween.

Every year I add another BIGGER spider, and this year I'm hoping to build a HUGE pvc pipe spider and a web-tunnel that ToT's have to go through to ring the door, and animate some smaller spiders in the tunnel with some spiral vortex lighting. 

Eventually, I want to incoporate headstones into an overgrown magic/ poison garden. I've figured out a way to make decent plant replicas with thin craft foam, but that's for the next house when I don't have to worry about moving all of this stuff around in a moving truck.


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## Kdestra (Jul 23, 2018)

Samhain isn’t really a theme but we use everything from the garden: pumpkins, gourds, corn stalks & dead trees. Hubby has been making grave stone for the victims of the Salem Witch Trials & I use everything associated with witchcraft (lots of hat, cats, cauldrons & broomsticks) Inside the house is decorated with vintage Halloween


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## Zombie4* (Aug 29, 2015)

mdna2014 said:


> I am all decked out and loving it! So cozy...
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> ...


Absolutely Love this!!! ?? Totally made me smile ???


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## printersdevil (Sep 7, 2009)

Kdestra: Beautiful displays of the autumn pumpkins and goards!!! That tall black witch is marvelous!

I can't wait to see your headstones for the witch trials.


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## Mrs_Frankenstein (Mar 1, 2016)

Love love love alllllll of these! This year (as of now) I’m not going to be doing a theme or decorating =/ we decided to do the Disney Halloween cruise this year and will be out of town the last two weeks of October. It’s the first year I haven’t decorated =(


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## printersdevil (Sep 7, 2009)

I would love to do the cruise. Be sure to share some photos.


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## Kdestra (Jul 23, 2018)

printersdevil said:


> Kdestra: Beautiful displays of the autumn pumpkins and goards!!! That tall black witch is marvelous!
> 
> I can't wait to see your headstones for the witch trials.


Thank you ?
We’re amateurs but felt it was important that people remember the victims names.


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## printersdevil (Sep 7, 2009)

I always do witches, wizards and fortune tellers. they are my favorites, but I do usually have a theme within these. I doubt that my TOTers or guests when I do a party really notice much of a theme though.

THe past few years I have sort of loosely done the yard haunt as a sort of a yearly meeting of the wizards, witches and the various conjurers/fortune tellers. I have a large number of full size props so I arrange them differently and redo signs, poses and the details for each scene within. 

*Hall of Fame Lifetime Achievement Awardees*
This year we are honoring some of our members by having a hall of fame. These props will just be displayed with appropriate signage to show their honors. It will feature several of these including the * Wicked Witch from Oz* ( this way I don't have to use the sound with her. I find it so loud and it overpowers the entire display. I am hoping to be able to hack into the wiring and have her move her head and I think it is the eyes or hand that moves---but no sound.)

*Merlin*, King Arthur's wizard
Gandolf from Lord of the Rings
Professor Dumbledore from Harry Potter
Marie Laveau, famous voodoo queen or priestess
Glynda, the good witch from Wizard of OZ
Endora from Bewitched
Malficient from the original Sleeping Beauty
Evil Queen/Old Hag  from the original Snow White.

All of the inductees are static props and do nothing but stand in the award area. I may ditch the inductee idea and just have signage for this area as Hall of Fame. Would love to come up with a catchy name for this.

The other props will all be placed at various workshop type areas or in the appropriate gift type markets trying to sell their ware. (shopping market areas include things like cauldrons, shrunken heads, potion bottles, costumes, witch, wizard, voodoo, and fortune teller wares and memoriabilla, brooms, herbs for the discerning Green or Hedge witch, an array of mystical beasts, mandrakes, familiars, and pets for the discerning audience (includes, black cats, spiders, toads, owls, dragons (even unhatched eggs to take home), rats, spiders and of course an array of magical items, games and creepy plants. 

Suitcase kits for the savvy traveling witch, wizard, fortune teller, voodoo enthusiast, and a fabulous Invisibility Cloak complete with an elegant wooden trunk and table display for your home castle enjoyment.n( I still don't have the wizard or voodoo kits.

There will also be teaching stations/staff development areas where Witches, Wizards and Fortune Tellers can learn or brush up on new techniques. These include things like spell casting, potion making, spells and spell books, divination, wands, the dark arts, herbology, crystals, numerous fortune telling techniques (tea leaves, numerology, Tarot, Runes, palm reading, crystal ball gazing, throwing bones, etc.) 

Inside the front double glass doors there will be broom flying lessons underway the young witch as well as refresher courses for the seasoned frequent flyer. Dragon riding classes available by appointment.


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## printersdevil (Sep 7, 2009)

Kdestra said:


> Thank you &#55356;&#57219;
> We’re amateurs but felt it was important that people remember the victims names.


I LOVE THESE!!! Nice job!!! I agree they should have a place of honor.


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## Mich1073 (Jun 16, 2018)

Mrs_Frankenstein said:


> Love love love alllllll of these! This year (as of now) I’m not going to be doing a theme or decorating =/ we decided to do the Disney Halloween cruise this year and will be out of town the last two weeks of October. It’s the first year I haven’t decorated =(


We do Fort Wilderness every year. A Disney cruise will be fun. Disney can do a great Halloween.


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## Mich1073 (Jun 16, 2018)

This year I will be doing NBC at Disney Fort Wilderness. I built quite a bit last year, this year I rebuilt and made a new head for Jack, I am building Sally's body and a complete Mayor. Jack was a redo of the Walgreens hanger that I bought a few years ago. I pretty much made him a PC body and new head. Just used the suit and arms and hands from the hanger. Sally I just made a head last year as she was peaking from behind the RIP thombstone. 

I plan on building the dragon puking fountain, the cemery gates with sytro blocks from tractor supply and landscape tubing and either Jack's house that will sit on our RV or Oogie. Depends on how much time left I have. Slowly getting it all done. Biggest issue is that everything you build has to be able to be taken apart and packed away to move in the RV and truck. Sally breaks up in three pieces etc.. 

Last year I made zero, zeros dog house, some of the thombstones. Also the mountain which actually came out better than I thought it would.

Don't mind the mess on the table. When you get in craft mode it piles up..


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## Mich1073 (Jun 16, 2018)

Forgot a few more pictures. I will show them when they are done in


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## panampia (Sep 16, 2009)

I normally do vignettes through out my home, for my annual Halloween extravaganza spooky party. But, last year I did spooky Jurassic Park, with all the Skeletons that were out. I also bought someone's old Barbie Jeep and followed the instructions some dude posted, on how he turned it into the Jurassic Park jeep. It all turned out fantastic. This year, I just had a huge tiki party outside on July 21st. One of my friends suggested the following theme, because my friends all love tiki and halloween: Ghouligan's Island! OMG I am so excited. I have a massive entry foyer, and am going to make a 10 or 12 foot strong cardboard replica of the SS Minnow! It will be a photo op area where people can get in it for pics. I am going to create a gangway on my front porch like the guests are boarding the boat for the 3 hour tour, then, in the vestibule, have the sound playing to Gilligan's Island with that new thunder/lighting light that I saw at Big Lots and Home Depot, and they get inside, and see the shipwreck, and all sorts of bamboo crafted things, that have been spookified. The cast of characters is fantastic...Scary Ann, Gringer, Mr and Mrs Howl, The Gripper, the ideas are endless. Oriental trading has a mermaid skeleton I am ordering, and I just picked up the flamingo skeleton from Big Lots. I am so excited.


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## Steveybee23 (Jul 8, 2015)

I normally do themes for my walk through and then whatever I used inside last year gets incorporated into the yard display. Last year was Cave, Witches house, Spider tunnel. This year is Nuclear Meltdown, Farmhouse and Jail. So all my props from last year get adde outside, I try to stay away from themes that are hard to incorporate into the yard like clowns for instance.


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## Kdestra (Jul 23, 2018)

Mich1073 said:


> I plan on building the dragon puking fountain, the cemery gates with sytro blocks from tractor supply
> 
> .


Wow! Your pictures are amazing. I can’t wait to hear & see more about your fountain ??


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## Kdestra (Jul 23, 2018)

Mich1073 said:


> Forgot a few more pictures. I will show them when they are done in


Simply amazing


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## mdna2014 (Jul 21, 2014)

Zombie4* said:


> Absolutely Love this!!! ?? Totally made me smile ???


I am very glad you like, Thank you!!


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