Tutorial of the Week: Cheap Halloween Fencing

Havent you always wanted to enclose your entire front yard in wrought-iron fencing for halloween, only to find out that it's so expensive there is literally NO WAY you can afford it?  I felt like this. I then tried to find alternatives.  Like Plastic Fencing from one of the Halloween companies, and found out that it too is extremely expensive (and often flimsy!).  So I went in search of do-it-yourself fencing on the internet.  I found a few good tutorials, and some excellent references for parts (I'll tell you later!) but nothing that stood out at me as perfect for what I wanted.  I wanted simple Black fencing with pretty little finials on top.

I searched http://www.hauntproject.com/ and http://www.halloweenmonsterlist.info/ but everyone had their own odd ways of doing things.  Seeing that I work for a Countertop/Cabinet manufacturer I have access to all kinds of tools and workspace I could possibly need, but for you at home, this can be done with just a drillgun, and small nails.  I of course used a nailgun with the large compressor, and found out the hard way that I was totally overkilling the nail stapling.  The wood is soft enough that a simple hammer should suffice.  The drilling of the holes is another issue entirely... I totally recommend you find a drillgun that has a cord and plugs in, otherwise you will definitely run the batteries out on the cordless drillguns...and quickly.  All in all I found this project although time consuming, well worth the effort.

Tutorial Guidelines:
What you need:
8 foot long pieces of 1/2 in x 1 1/2" wood (From Home depot they are $.82 each)  You will need 2 for each 8 foot section of fencing, so plan accordingly.
2-3 pieces of 1/2" PVC Pipe per 8 foot section (approx $1.10 each), depending on how tall you want your fencing.
a Corded Drillgun with a 3/4" bit on it.
Small Nails (like the ones used for hanging light pictures)
Hammer
Black Paint - you can hand paint the pieces or spray them like we did
1 Can of Silver or Gold Spray Paint (Your preference - we went with silver) 
6-10 Finials per 8ft section of fencing (we ordered these online - http://www.kingmetals.com/Catalog/CatalogListing.aspx?CatalogId=C39&CatalogDetailId=594  )
Heatgun or really hot blowdryer.

Total Cost of an 8ft section of Fencing is about $11 or so depending on what you buy.

Pictures are worth a thousand words so here's the pictures....

Basically you will want to cut the 10' PVC into even heights (we used 30 inches - which is 4 pieces out of each piece of PVC), and we spaced ours out to use 12 pieces per section of fence.  You will want to drill the holes leaving less at the ends (when you match up the fencing it will appear even spacing)... Just get a pencil and mark it out on a piece of wood. 

You will want to drill holes using a 3/4" drillbit in the dead-center of each piece (on the wideside people)  After you have drilled ONE piece, then use that piece to MARK your marks on all subsequent pieces.  This insures that you get even fencing...

Check your fencing by putting it together... make sure it looks right.  Then pull it all apart.

Finish with your cuts of the PVC and the drilling of your holes.  Next up: PAINTING! Yay!

We suggest getting a painters tarp (the cheap cheap ones), and stretch it out and lay out your pieces on this.  line them up, a bunch at a time.  The Spray them with the spray paint, or handpaint them or whatever.  The tarp keeps the paint contained...

Make sure you get it all good and dark, but you don't have to be a stickler. No one will see the holes, so you don't have to paint those... REALLY.  Once all of this is dry you can go ahead and put it all together like in the first picture again.  Make sure your bottom row is FLAT... Stand it up and check.  What I did was put a nail in the bottom rung on one end, stood it up, matched the other end, and did the same thing.   You will want to make sure you don't put nails in the BOTTOM wood of the middle, or whatever pieces you are going to stick Rebar in for your yard (btw, rebar is AWESOME for making this stuff stand up!!) 

Once you have your nails in your wood (one nail PER piece of PVC should be enough.) comes the fun part.  Getting the Finials on. 

Some people glue them onto the top, but it looks tacky imho.  I used a Heatgun, and basically MELTED the top of the PVC and wearing GLOVES cuz the melted PVC is FRICKEN HOT!!, I mold the pvc inwards and shove the Finials in place.  Once it dries, it will retain the shape of the inside of the finial (thus making a SQUARE fit on a Circle! yay!). 

As you can see in this picture we have already done the silver painting.  This can be done at ANY point.  We brushed it on as we were doing the finials, but it's really a personal choice.  We then LIGHTLY sprayed the finials with the silver spray paint... REAL LIGHT.. Like a DUSTING really.  You don't want them silver, but you want them to seem...castiron.  And once you have done this you can pull off some of the finials and glue them down permanently.. Although they stay on PRETTY well on their own.

You are Done.  It takes the better part of an entire day to do this.  I'd say the drilling of the holes took the longest, followed by the painting.  But I ended up with a pretty awesome looking fence for my front yard... Check out the pics of it being used:

We had one side leaning so it looked sort of old and abandoned...

Halloween in April?

Most people think I am pretty insane for planning Halloween in April, and even crazier when I tell them that I am already behind schedule!

Today I am torn between designing halloween stuff, and actually going in to work and doing the business taxes for the year and my normal work...  it's 9am, and I'm still sitting here at home.  Can you see my lack of motivation yet?

Yesterday my mom asked me what I wanted for my birthday.  Oddly enough I answered "a sewing machine"... Cuz frankly she can't get me what I REALLY want, which is pink or blue foamboard that is 2in thick.  I know that sounds like an odd gift request, but here's why:

Pink and Blue Foamboard can be cut, shaped, painted, decorated, and turned into all kinds of halloween things, especially Gravestones.  I am desperate for some heavyduty awesome new gravestones this year.  It Can also be used to create just about ANYTHING else you need for Halloween decor.  I already have my fencing, but I was thinking of adding another 6-7 sections and enclosing the ENTIRE front yard at my parents, so the ToT's won't be able to go the wrong way.  I also want to use the fencing to go all the way to the front door, so the ToT's don't think its ok to walk across the bushes and the neighbors plants (the neighbors REALLY don't like kids, halloween, Christmas, or any holiday for that matter.  They never turn on their lights for halloween, and any kid brave enough to knock on their door anyways gets no answer from within.). 

Anyways.  The pink and blue foamboard is apparently not available period in Southern California because there is no "practical" use for it here being that it is supposed to be used as heavy duty insulation in houses.  Frankly that irritates me a bit... No. A LOT.  Why not carry at least a few pieces at lowes or Home Depot.  So THAT is why I want a sewing machine for my birthday instead.  I am actually pretty good at sewing, and totally fixed/changed the horrendous skirt that Nancy Skolota had made me for halloween last year and turned it into something actually wearable!  Imagine That.  The funny thing is She supposedly went to school for Costume Design, but her sewing on everyone but her own costumes sucks. Especially Mine.  I think having a costume last year that didn't work at ALL.  She created me this shirt that she initially made like 8 sizes too small, and then tried to fix it with a weird ass addon across the front.  Needless to say I took one look at it, and threw it in the trash.  I paid like $5 for the fabric for it, and frankly I would have been better off just buying a shirt like I ended up doing the morning of the Party.  As for the Jacket she made, apparently she has an inability to listen to what people want when creating costumes.  She made me a WEIRD jacket that only goes to the sides of my waste.  It doesn't close, and she had PLENTY of Fabric.  I bought like 5 yds of the Jacket Fabric.  I tried it on, and aside from only going to the sides of my waste, it fit perfect.  But again, totally unwearable.  And finally there was the Bodice.  The DAY OF THE PARTY she hands me a completely unfinished bodice, and says "you'll have to do the gromets to wear it"....  It was 2 hrs before the party.  What was she thinking?  I think she honestly thought she was going to sabotage my costume and I would just not show up to my own party.  Fortunately for me, I had a bodice from Frederick's of Hollywood stashed away for just this purpose.  When I asked her 7 days before the party and she told me she hadn't started my bodice, I decided to go spend real money and get one.

So this is why I want a sewing Machine.  I am a better seamstress than THAT, and managed to salvage and fix the ONE thing in my entire costume she made me, that I actually wore on Halloween.  I'll probably wear it again too. 

What you can't see in this picture is that the skirt has about 3 yds of fabric on my ass making it look twice as big.  This pic was taken later in the evening, after several drinks, thus why my rifle is down my bodice, and the bottom 3 snaps on my bodice are undone...  But the skirt fabric was SO AWESOME.  It was such a great find, so I had to save the skirt.  Btw, Guy in the Picture with me is named Tim, but he came as Les Grossman from Tropic Thunder (Tom Cruise).  He played the part so well and hit on everyone there.  It was awesome, and why I love him so much.  He's truly one of my best friends, and this pic kinda shows how we are together.  It's ALWAYS fun when we get together.  Ask Greg.  LOL.

Anywho.  That's it for today's Blog... Maybe I'll post a tutorial this weekend on something I created last year.  =)