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So since my family bought a house (most of my high school and most of my college life we lived in a condo where we would hold our yearly halloween party in the community condo in the complex), we started using the front yard for making a mini-graveyard. Buying fake tombstones is like potato chips: you just buy more cuz your body requires more.
Yes. Your body needs fake tombstones. Its like having an addiction to cyanide.
That metaphor makes perfect sense, you just have to read it 50 times.
Anyhow, I've been slowly building our graveyard over the last maybe 7-8 years, and decided to show off some pics, and talk a little bit about some tips and tricks if you wanna try. Feel free to comment in the tumblr post if you have other tips.
So here's the first pic. This is our attic storage. This is a tiny room above the garage. What you can't see in this pic is this gaping hole in the sheetrock. That was from me putting my knee through it cuz I'm a clumsy Dumbass McGee.
Its a treacherous job to remove things from the attic since you only have enough space for the tubs holding the decorations and not a person at the same time, so it requires a sort of twister-balance game on a ladder.
Yeah.
The tombstones are usually stored at the frontal part where you need to use a hefty t-square to drag them towards you, reach across a gap of 2 1/12 feet and hand them down to a waiting slave--er, helper.
Here's a look at the raw materials. Our giant ass collection of tombstones-not giant enough- plus our cute lamppost and the graveyard gate.
The gate is nothing more than Cody's old puppy gate, and since he's going on 6 and a half, its gotten a lovely amount of cobwebs and slight rust.
Here's a look at the other materials needed. A collection of thin metal stakes and thicker plastic stakes. The metal ones are for securing the gate down so that the thing doesn't fall over.
The plastic ones are for keeping the tombstones standing, as even moderate breezes can knock over the heaviest stones. The ground in our yard is uneven, so the stakes are super important.
Beer and tunes. Also essential raw materials for the job.
Before I continue, here's what we do with the roof eaves. We hang severed heads from them.
At Christmas we hang giant ornaments. We're hella classy.
Here's the entire set up. I forgot to take pics during the setting process. But a few things to consider if you're going to put up your own graveyard. Having a good spread of sizes helps a lot. I have a few that are maybe 3 or so feet tall, and a few that are a foot. The gargoyles are hefty, but short, so I use them as anchor points for the eyes.
There are two ways to go when arranging. The first is to use a false perspective by placing the smaller ones in the back and the larger ones up front. The other way is to spread the sizes out and spacing them so that they create a varied "skyline". I went with the latter, since I found the spread looks better. You can choose either way.
Make sure your spread is even enough that there isn't much overlap between the stones. Its best to step back to the sidewalk line to check the view and perspective your trick or treaters will see. Stakes are planted behind a stone to keep them from falling down. In some cases there's one in front and one behind, which keeps some standing up. I generally give them a night or 2 to see which have the propensity to fall.
Here's Cody doing his best cemetery cat impression. He seemed quite content in resting behind the stones.
Everybody must get stonnnnnned.
Ok, yeah, its another pic of Cody just cuz. But it also illustrates what to do when you don't stake your tombstones. Notice the arm sticking up. That stone, the cross, broke one year in a windstorm, but instead of throwing it away, we thought that it added to the character. Leaning the broken cross on its base made it look pretty cool. Its something to consider if something happens to your tombstone.
What's missing this year for the first time since we moved in is the old Cerebus foam statue. In the last maybe 3 years the joints in the metal limbs started to break, and the foam latex was deteriorating. Sadly he was retired, but I still miss him. We used to leash him with one of Cody's puppy leashes, it was kinda cute.
I miss him. ;.;
Anyhow, hope that was an informative article!
--Dio (10/11/15)
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