While I’ve been running Google ads for quite a while now, it’s my hope to one day remove the Google ads and only feature a few small advertisements from private companies offering quality Halloween merchandise. I want everyone to be able to benefit in the process: my visitors (by being able to purchase spooky items from reputable companies), the advertisers and SoS.

Until that day comes, however, I’m still keeping with the Google ad blocks as well. And while I unfortunately can’t control everything Google shows in their advertisements, I do have full say on the private ads I accept. In fact, I recently turned down an offer from a company selling Halloween masks because their business didn’t feel like it would be beneficial to SoS visitors for a couple of reasons. I’m not here to turn a quick buck; I care about the experience of everyone who visits this site and that includes any purchases they might make through Halloween-based companies I’m working with.

With that being said, I haven’t made a purchase through Invitation Box, but they do have some great looking Halloween invitations — from spooky, to cheery to classically gothic. And based on my interactions with their representative, they’re absolutely a class act to do business with. So, if you do pick up some Halloween invitations, I’m sure you’ll be very pleased.

Got a hankerin’ for a feast of flesh? How ’bout a thirst for some drool from a ghoul? Or perhaps you have a more discriminating palate and you’d prefer chowing down on a less than fresh side dish of death. If that’s the case, some scrapings from a moldy corpse should be just what the mortician ordered. This is the point where backup vocals interrupt my bizarre, morbid descriptions with a, “Shut Your Mouth.” And then I respond with, “I’m just talking about Haunted Hot Sauce.” Once again I’m showing my age, but this time with a “Shaft” reference.

In all seriousness, “FleashFeast,” “Ghoul Drool,” “Mortician’s Mold” and “Undertaker’s Undead” are all hot sauce flavors available at HauntedHotSauce.com. While I’ve only tried Ghoul Drool, I’m positive the other flavors are just as delicious. The creator of Haunted Hot Sauce, Victor “The Undertaker” Ives, is a consummate professional when it comes to creating incredible sauce, not to mention his wonderfully creative eye for detail in marketing and packaging his products.

Each bottle comes in its own creepily cool, hand-made cedar coffin, equipped with moss and fake maggots! In fact, I love my Ghoul Drool’s cedar coffin so much, it still rests on the workbench in my shop for inspiration.

I don’t recommend products very often in my blog entries, but Haunted Hot Sauce is one that I’m very proud to endorse (for free). If you’d like to place an order before Halloween, I’m sure “The Undertaker” can accommodate you.

The title for today’s entry reminds me of a spooky spot I’d love to visit somewhere in the deepest, darkest of woods. However, Autumnforest isn’t a location you can go to physically, but instead, she’s a person who’s created the virtual equivalent of that spooky spot amidst the woodlands. Comprised of all the things I hold dear: Halloween, the paranormal, and the creepy; Autumnforest’s Ghost Hunting Theories is a fantastic blog for Halloween buffs, horror fans and supernatural aficionados alike. While I could write a lengthy entry describing her knack for crafting amazing tales of horror, or talk about her mind-opening theories that shatter antiquated concepts regarding the paranormal; in this post, I’m focusing on her ’09 Halloween haunt/party.

Being a fellow inhabitant of the Southwest, Autumnforest knows just how challenging it is to transform desert landscape into autumnal scenery. Capturing the more commonly associated feelings of fall and Halloween, amidst cactus and rocks, isn’t always easily accomplished, yet she manages to pull it off without a hitch and is a great hostess to boot! I’m busy enough tending to my yard haunt on Halloween night, but she manages to find time for decorating the yard, taking care of trick-or-treaters and entertaining party guests. I wonder if she’d like to bring her talents to New Mexico on October 31st? I could always use an extra hand.

In all seriousness, her haunt has a lot of great elements — the graveyard scene and haunted doll room being two of my favorites. I know she has plans to expand even more for Halloween 2010 on the scary doll stuff and I can’t wait to see exactly what she has up her sleeve.

Whatever you do, whether you’re in the mood for Halloween, horror or theories on the supernatural, you gotta swing by Ghost Hunting Theories. It’s indeed the virtual equivalent of that sweet, spooky spot way back there in the forest.

Borrowed from the book and movie, Pay It Forward, Ghosting It Forward embraces the concept of doing a good deed for at least three people, and then asking them to do the same — all via a Halloween theme. The purpose of Ghosting It Forward is to generate positive, random acts of kindness for friends, family members or even total strangers during the month of October. It’s called “ghosting” because of Halloween and the kind act is meant to be anonymous, sort of like a ghost.

Here’s an example of “ghosting” in action, taken from the Ghosting It Forward website:

“What a fun time we had ghosting the neighborhood! I filled three pumpkin buckets with candles, a Halloween potholder, a Halloween dish towel and candies. Sherilyn filled her three bags with assorted goodies. Sherilyn and I decided to go ghosting together, along with our kids and my husband, [who] drove the getaway van.

“We stopped close to the driveway, while the kids ran to the house and rang the doorbell. We laughed so hard as the kids scampered back to the van, sometimes losing shoes, tripping, or screaming at the barking dogs. It felt like a night of trick-or-treating in reverse mode!

“I am hoping this will inspire others to take time out of their busy schedule and have as much fun as we did!”

Personally, I love this idea, as I try to make performing small, random acts of kindness a regular thing throughout the year anyway. I usually receive a lot of odd looks while performing most kind acts, but then again I’m already accustomed to getting odd looks. However, Ghosting It Forward has inspired me to take it new a whole new level, especially this coming October.

Here’s a vid from YT user, KNecromancer explaining Ghosting It Forward and why she participates:

For full details on the ghosting project, be sure and checkout ghostingitforward.org.

You’ll quickly see why when you check out his family’s 2009 Home Haunt vid:

I highly recommend swinging by The Haunting Grounds. Though the site is still new, there’s already ample amounts of photos and interesting posts to inspire the Halloween spirit. And, S.K.’s passion for the holiday is evident throughout. When you combine that with some very strong artistic talent, it’s only a matter of time before The Haunting Grounds becomes a popular online Halloween destination.

On another note, I’d like to wish everyone a happy and safe New Year’s Eve. I’d also like to thank you all for making 2009 a spectacular year here at Season of Shadows! You guys have been so kind, supportive and awesome. I’m extremely jazzed about 2010 and hope you will continue to join me for the experience.

I found a fantastic tutorial for creating a paper mache skeleton on Halloween Forum this morning. The photo definitely doesn’t do the prop justice, but it’s the only finished image I could find. The skeleton, built by forum member Unorthodox, is comprised primarily of cardboard (for the bones), conduit or a stick (for the spine), foam (for vertebrae), clay (for fingers and toes) and paper mache.

All joints are fully articulated in this skeleton through a combination of wire and swivels — pretty awesome to have a pose-able corpse made from mache. Usually, when I think of mache corpses, I think of static, stationary props.

Though we’re getting down to the wire and this is a pretty sizeable project, anyone looking for a do-it-yourself skeleton by Halloween could pull it off during the month of October. Naturally, you could just buy a plastic, blow mold “blucky” at the store, but where’s the fun in that. Not to mention, this prop looks a lot sweeter than those plastic skeletons.

To see more of Unorthodox’s cool creations, checkout his site: An Unorthodox Halloween.

So, I decided to create the video featured in today’s entry in an effort to not only work on overcoming that fear, but also to give a little love back to my visitors and fellow haunters. I’m hoping to make these video appearances a somewhat regular addition to the site. Hope you enjoy it or at least the inspiration behind it.

Underneath the video, you’ll find links to all the sites (if the person has a site) and projects I spoke on.

Haunt/Dark Ambient Music

raison detre
Sephiroth (via the Coldmeat Industries search section under information)
Kammarheit
Johnny Hollow

Shout Outs

Alien Paranormal UFO Casebook
Autumnforest Ghost Hunter
Ghoul Friday
Pumpkinrot
Through the Patch
King Unicorn
Ghost Droppings

When it comes to online yard haunters, there are several that stand out as pillars of the Halloween haunt community. Through a combination of their character, their talent and their willingness to provide help and value to others; they’ve created quite a legacy that will hopefully, thanks to the internet, live on forever. One of those pillar haunters is Rob of Skull And Bone. An amazing balancing act between class and suspenseful horror, Skull And Bone was incredible.

I say was, because it seems the haunt has been retired for now. While Miss Rose (the haunt’s focus character) may have taken her last Halloween stroll, I’m hoping the Skull And Bone Haunt will eventually be resurrected.

I hope you enjoy the following video as much as I have over the years.

When you consider the vast potential for making new friends and you combine it with all the great features found in social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, it only stands to reason that similar services, devoted strictly to Halloween and haunt enthusiasts, would be formed. Yard Haunters is such a service. The site contains a forum, videos, member blogs and a chat section. As of right now, they have thirty-four members. While that may not seem like a large number, don’t let it fool you — there’s a ton of quality in the work I’ve seen displayed by this group.

In fact, I was very taken by the incredible zombie drawing featured in the first paragraph! “Zombie Ink” is an original piece by Yard Haunters’ member — Ethan Black. His photo pages feature several awesome drawings, along with very cool yard haunt creations (like this beautifully corpsed skeleton) and other Halloween related items to help set the mood. I highly recommend swinging by Ethan’s page and while you’re there, be sure and check out all that Yard Haunters has to offer.

Devious Concoctions, another one of my favorite haunts, just posted their 2008 Halloween footage on You Tube in the last few weeks as well. The DC haunt is a pneumatic prop paradise. Animatronic corpses rule the roost in their 3,000 square foot cemetery, but get this — it’s a home haunt and it’s completely free to the public. The Devious Concoctions Haunt has been featured on programs like NBC’s Today Show, HGTV’s What’s With That Really Haunted Halloween House? and Fearnet.com’s Route 666 America’s Scariest Haunted Houses, just to name a few.

Photo source: Devious Concoctions Cemetery

Video source: You Tube User dcdesignstudio

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