Manning Makes Stuff - Halloween decorations, paper mache masks, costumes, party ideas, and more

Hansel and Gretel light-up oven prop! — part 2

This is part 2 of my paper maché oven prop for Halloween 2018; see part 1 here.

Making the fake flames

Making the fire was an interesting challenge! I needed to find a material that would be translucent enough to diffuse the light properly, and also rigid enough that it could stand up in the oven. One thing I thought of ahead of time was that if I curved the material for the flames, that might help it stand up better; think about holding a piece of paper vertically and curving it a bit so it’s somewhat rigid. Make sense? More on this coming up.

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Hansel and Gretel light-up oven prop! — part 1

I’m making this big light-up oven prop for my haunted gingerbread house Halloween party in 2018! It will eventually be a lightweight wall hanging with some battery powered lights and one Hue light inside. So far so good! Here’s what I’ve done so far…

Building the oven base

First I designed the basic shape of the oven in Photoshop — it’s 40″ x 30″; I chose this size out of convenience because it allowed me to base the design on two sheets of 20″ x 30″ foam board connected side by side. Read more…

Cabaret de L’Enfer Halloween party

The theme for my Halloween party in 2012 was the Cabaret de L’Enfer — a real Hell-themed café in the red light district of Paris in the 19th century. You can read all about it and see some amazing pics of it on my Paris website, Cool Stuff in Paris. Of course our color scheme was red/orange/yellow, and the centerpiece for the party would be the iconic devil mouth doorway that graced the entrance of the Cabaret. But first, here’s the animated invitation I made for the party. (It has audio, and it’s made with Flash so it won’t work on your iPhone/iPad.)
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Spooky mausoleum drawers Halloween decoration

I was in charge of creating some decorations for a huge cemetery-themed Halloween party at a friend’s house several years back, and we decided to turn the dining room into a morgue/mausoleum by putting fake marble drawers on the wall. These were fun and extremely easy to make, and they’re great for a cemetery-themed party, a zombie-themed party, an asylum-themed party, etc. Here are the materials I used:
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