Every Saturday in October, as well as some weekday nights, Brian and Michael worked on the headstones. Using spray foam, Brian and I gave Madam Leota's face sculpture a shot. That stuff is a little unpredictable, but we like how it turned out, even if she looks more like she belongs at a ball in the golden era at Versailles instead of the face of Madam Leota from Disney World.
Once the headstones were all carved, Brian had to attach bases to them.
And he put in pressure treated 2x4s to give them weight and stability. Then, he drilled holes in the 2x4s and inserted PVC pipe for the rebar to go into for staking them into the ground.
This was a tricky thing to figure out and occupied a lot of brain space as he worked out the best way to attach the bases to the ground. The wind is strong here, and we knew these tombstones needed to be able to withstand those strong gusts.
Once the bases were ready, It was time to age these tombstones. The boys added some wear using a heat gun and a spray bottle.
This made the foam look more like weathered stone.
Finally, all the bases were on, and they'd been properly weathered and cracked.
Then it was time to paint them with Drilock. I think this weatherproofed the foam a bit while making it look like stone. The effect was really cool. This made them really start to look legit!
We were starting to wonder why we did so many!
Finally, we got them all drylocked.
And then the fun began.
It was finally time to paint them! We used a combination of colors and water to make it look like they had moss growing on them and that dirt had repeatedly blown into the writing and then got rinsed out by rain.
And, of course, we needed to make sure the writing stuck out.
It was fun to do. Finally, they were finished and just needed to go into the yard---with only a few days to spare before it was actually Halloween. Here are our Tombstones inspired by the Pun Crypt:
And our Imagineer ones:
Mister Frees is a tribute to Paul Frees, a voice actor who provided the voice of the Ghost Host.
We already talked about Grandpa Marc, one of the original "Nine Old men" Disney animators.
Cousin Huet is a tribute to Cliff Huet, the interior designer of the mansion.
Leota Toombs was an imagineer and the model for medium inside the mansion. She also provided the voice for the ghost that says, "Hurry back, hurry back. Don't forget to bring your death certificate" as you exit the ride.
After they were deemed dry enough, it was time to install them outside.
He made sure the spacing of the rebar matched the spacing of the pvc pipe inside each tombstone.
And then put the headstone over the rebar.
We were pretty proud of our cemetery. We kept it in our flower beds to the kids could still play in the backyard and so that they could be seen from the street.
Brian also got a coffin from Shayne, who got it from someone. The idea was to have it open like the one in Haunted Mansion, but Brian didn't have time to figure out the robotics of it. We did put a speaker inside that played "Let me out of here! Let me out of here" and poked skeleton hands out from under the lid.
We put dollar store solar lights by each one to help light them up at night.
And somewhere along the way, we got an idea to make a special doormat.
Following instructions from online, We cut out the design out of vinyl, and then the vinyl wouldn't stick to the mat. I was ready to give up in frustration,
But then Brian went out and made the vinyl stencil work. We used a rubbery spray called Flex Seal.
It turned out so good! We love it so much!
Michael heard us trying to figure out what to do about a hatchet for my costume, and then disappeared for a bit. When he came back, he had this:
Unfortunately, it wasn't quite the right scale and it melted when I tried to paint, so Brian carved me a new one.
I was more careful painting this one.
It was so fun seeing all our scheming and planning come together!
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