The Dead End

The New-to-Me Home

noreply@blogger.com (Ghostess) — Sat, 11 Oct 2025 12:47:00 +0000

I've had a couple of people email me and ask about the new house. Above is the view of the lake from my dock. Sunrises are beautiful, sunsets aren't as viewable because I live on the south side of the lake and the trees block it a bit.

Below is the walk through the woods along the boardwalk to the dock. Blessed with beautiful cypress trees loaded with lots of spanish moss. This is a perfect scene for an old witchy lady. I've become somewhat feral living out here, not leaving much except to go to work or see my kids or granddaughter. Hell, most of the time, I go for days without brushing my hair or wearing makeup. It's nice not feeling like I have to keep appearances up for the area I live in.

My front yard is also HUGE, with lots of big oak and maple trees. This yard is a haunter's dream.

That's it for now. Happy October!!

👻

The Rot is back, baby!

noreply@blogger.com (Ghostess) — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 10:48:00 +0000

Listen, if you've been living under a rock and weren't aware - Pumpkinrot is back. Actually, he was back last year, and he brought the spirit with him. Haxan was amazing, as we would expect. Cannot wait to see what is in store for 2025's haunt season.

Head over to insta to check out the teaser!!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DPQsX2wjZwZ/?igsh=MTVzNHZrODRreHFlMQ==

Sorry I've been MIA...

noreply@blogger.com (Ghostess) — Sat, 04 Oct 2025 13:36:00 +0000

Sooooooo... I left the Dead End.

I moved in August 2023. I sold my house, bought a fixer-upper on a lake, gave away all of my Halloween props to a fellow Florida Haunter, got rid of 75% of my other possessions, and moved to the country!

What does this mean for the future of my Halloween obsession?

Wellllllll... the truth is....

I don't know. The house is the epitome of an actual haunted house, as in it's a wreck because my renovation has been stalled for over a year.

The good thing is, the dirt road I live on is a dead end, so no rebranding will be needed, even though I don't live at the end of the street. I don't have an HOA, so I don't have any restrictions on what I can do in my yard.

The drawback is that I live an hour at the least from everyone else in my circles, so no more parties. Plus, I live in the country on an out-of-the-way road, with basically no traffic except the people who live here and ZERO trick-or-treaters, so not many people would even see my work.

BUT!

I do feel the need to create again, even though I should be worrying more about getting the house done.

So, who knows what will happen. I will be trying to at least post more, probably throwing shout-outs to other haunters that I admire.

In the meantime, I jumped on the Drawlloween wagon (4 days late, yes)and sketched with an ink pen in one of my notebooks. It's a horrible sketch, for sure. Ink pen is not what I would normally use as it's not forgiving at all, but it is what it is. (Warning: it's bad, like a 5 year old drew it bad.)

Heads-up

And then, for shits 'n giggles, I asked ChatGTP to render it into a cartoon image. LOVE it!

Basically, it's the headless horseman on the hill in the background, and they're using his head as the volleyball.

Anyway, figured I'd update in case anyone was wondering what happened and why I haven't posted in a couple of years. It's been a challenging two years, but I'm happy, and I am living my dream of living on a LAKE! With my own dock!

That said, I'm gonna go look through my art supplies. Happy October, my spooky friends!

Alright, alright.... 2022 Pics are UP!

noreply@blogger.com (Ghostess) — Wed, 17 May 2023 01:03:00 +0000

So, my favorite coworker mentioned something about the website not being updated with last year's pictures. So, tonight, I transferred the ones I could find, resized, uploaded and got most of them on the website. Link is on the left on the navigation pane, marked 2022. I have to find the memory card from my actual camera to get the decorations photos, but not much has changed since previous years. Mostly I have party pics up.

Happy New Year! (Yeah, I'm late and it's February...)

noreply@blogger.com (Ghostess) — Fri, 17 Feb 2023 22:10:00 +0000

It's been a busy few months, and things are finally winding down at work so that I can actually spend time catching up on the rest of the things I need to do. I just came back from a much-needed short cruise, and am ready for the springtime and all the fun stuff that goes with sunshine and warm weather.

The 2022 party was a HUGE success! I believe a great time was had by all, including me. I will be posting up the photos from the party and from Halloween night over the next couple of days.

One week until the party

noreply@blogger.com (Ghostess) — Sun, 23 Oct 2022 01:08:00 +0000

Only one week to go, and it's been one setback after another, keeping me from getting anything done. The invitations got scrapped after many issues with paper, ink, and just a lot of wasted time trying to get them done. I ended up bringing back a revised version of a ticket-style I used several years ago that was simple, and I got them cranked out in 4 hours.

Work has been taking a lot of time, overtime every day and working on the weekend, and leaving me physically and mentally exhausted. I ended up passing out as soon as I got home yesterday and lost another whole evening. Two main components of my costume haven't even shipped yet, I ordered them in September! I had to hit Amazon and make an emergency backup order for something else that will work for what I already have. Then my phone decided to kick the bucket today, causing more time loss and sheer frustration, and the replacement doesn't come until Wednesday at the earliest ... and to top THAT off.... the PVC pipe to the hall bathroom toilet busted like 30 minutes after I let go of the frustration over my phone. Water everywhere. I feel like the Universe is trying to prevent me from having this party this year!

Tomorrow is a new day, a whole day off to be productive and get things done. I refuse to get stuck on the frustrated feelings. Just gonna roll with the setbacks, conquer each challenge as it arises, and WIN the battle to have the party that hasn't happened for 4 years. The show must go on!!

And now, ear plugs, Unisom, and sleep.....

Less than two weeks!!

noreply@blogger.com (Ghostess) — Sun, 16 Oct 2022 19:49:00 +0000

This weekend, I got the invitations mostly done with the help of my daughter, Taylor and my buddy, Zeke. Yes, I'm very late on those, but Facebook and word on mouth already has people informed. Today, my son, Brandon, came over and we got the bulk of the cemetery set up in just over 2 hours, which is a record for us.

The remainder of my Sunday will be eating a huge bowl of homemade chili, watching a Halloween movie, and getting the invites ready to hand out.

Happy First of October!

noreply@blogger.com (Ghostess) — Sun, 02 Oct 2022 01:42:00 +0000

It's that time of year!

noreply@blogger.com (Ghostess) — Fri, 30 Sep 2022 12:14:00 +0000

Greetings, foolish mortals!

I'm back in the spirit, and ready to get down to Halloween. This has been a really hard year, with a lot of personal issues and major depression early this year, but I'm out of the darkness in my head, happy again, and ready for some good times and fun.

I had some website downtime due to moving to a new web host, but that should all be resolved now. If anyone notices any missing photos or links not working, please shoot me an email to let me know!

Hurricane Ian came by and visited us yesterday, and thankfully didn't stay long or trash the place, so I spent the day cleaning the garage up a bit so I can start pulling my Halloween totes and bodies out of the attic. Today, the last day of September, I'm hoping to get them all down and start going through everything so I can get to decorating the inside of the house for the PARTY!!!! I am not letting anything stop me this year from doing what I do best, creating a fun, haunted atmosphere for my friends and family to join me in celebrating the very best season of the year.

Unfortunately, my work schedule is probably going to cut into my time as we are gearing up for our new system and workflow, plus finishing up the move to the new warehouse, and I won't get anything new done, but who needs sleep anyway?

I'm ready for this Halloween. Stay tuned!

The Halloween from Hell

noreply@blogger.com (Ghostess) — Sun, 07 Nov 2021 23:41:00 +0000

Halloween 2021 was supposed to be my great comeback with tons of prepwork completed to my house to get it back in shape for company. Instead, it was a lame and pitiful showing of last minute "throw it out in the yard" BS, with no party despite all my hard work, and the entire month of October was just a giant cesspool of depression.

Halloween 2022 WILL be the year. It WILL, not matter what. I NEED this.

The display for this year can be found here:

http://theghostess.com/2021.htm

The Dead End 2021, I hope

noreply@blogger.com (Ghostess) — Sat, 11 Sep 2021 01:38:00 +0000

Spent the day working on the rough draft for my party invitations for this year. Unfortunately, I had to scrap my original plan of voodoo dolls/poppets because I ran out of patience and mojo for making those incredibly time-consuming and tedious monstrosities. Instead, I am revamping a previous version of an invite I've done before. It's one of my favorites, fun to make, and most of the people we will be inviting this year have never seen them, so it will be fresh for them.

The computer part of this is the worst. I hate being stuck on the computer.

Most of the planned house projects and repairs are nearing completion soon, so I can get rolling in earnest on Halloween fun.

What to do when you have to stay off your feet?

noreply@blogger.com (Ghostess) — Fri, 21 May 2021 20:57:00 +0000

Arts & "crafts" for the win!

Managed to injure my foot doing yard work a couple of weekends ago, and it's steadily gotten worse, so this weekend (my weekends are currently 3 days long) I decided to work on some prototypes for this year's shenanigans. Wrapping wooden beads is hard. That is all.

Halloween 2020

noreply@blogger.com (Ghostess) — Fri, 06 Nov 2020 00:39:00 +0000

So, I didn't make it in time with Goliath. He made it out to the display, but he isn't Goliath, he's a faceless winged demon looking thing with a monochromatic greenish gray paint job. Bird Girl also didn't get done, but I put a red spot on her and she was fine. We had a decent turnout for our culdesac considering the circumstances of the world these days. We had about 50 kids come by. Pictures on the left in the navigation pane on the website, under 2020.

Or, click here: http://theghostess.com/2020.htm

Will I make it in time??!!??

noreply@blogger.com (Ghostess) — Wed, 28 Oct 2020 21:55:00 +0000

I'm getting closer, but I am afraid that I won't finish Goliath in time! I scored a day off today, and worked on Goliath for most of the day so far. I have 2 fans on him right now trying to aid in the drying time. Once he's fully dry, I can sand him down some and get his head and hair done. I'll probably get his loin cloth done today too. I am getting ready to start on the wings now, but here is the progress so far:

10 Days!

noreply@blogger.com (Ghostess) — Thu, 22 Oct 2020 00:34:00 +0000

There are only 10 days left until Halloween. Gotta admit, I'm feeling the time crunch now. Goliath is no where near complete, Bird Girl still needs to be painted, and this whole "work" thing is getting in my way!! I did take Sunday off from projects to work in the front yard trimming trees and bushes and stuff, getting it ready for the cemetery to go up next weekend.

I finally got started using the paper clay on Goliath now. I covered his legs, giving him better shape and smoothing out the strips over the duct tape. It'll take a couple of days to dry thoroughly, even though I tried not to make it too thick. I had to make a new page for the progress of this project as the first page is getting really long and I don't want the pages to take forever to load. The link to the second page is on the bottom of Page 1. :-)

Stiltbeast Studios

noreply@blogger.com (Ghostess) — Sat, 17 Oct 2020 22:51:00 +0000

If y'all wanna learn how to do some cool stuff, check out Allen Hopps over at Stiltbeast Studios on their Youtube channel! Good stuff, and entertaining! He's got some great videos on how to make cool Halloween props very simply and VERY cost-effectively. Check it out!

StiltbeastStudios

Hump Day! Goliath V.2 progress

noreply@blogger.com (Ghostess) — Thu, 15 Oct 2020 02:25:00 +0000

Worked on getting that important base layer of strip mache on top of most of the duct tape. Now I can see better what I'm working with and my future mache clay has something better to stick to. Good times!

Goliath is looking like something finally!

noreply@blogger.com (Ghostess) — Wed, 14 Oct 2020 00:05:00 +0000

Got a lot of the "fleshing out" part done, and he has a head now!

Follow the progress here:

http://theghostess.com/goliathV2.htm

Goliath V.2 Progress Sunday, October 11

noreply@blogger.com (Ghostess) — Mon, 12 Oct 2020 00:53:00 +0000

So, it's moving along. I have the frame done and attached to the base, and I have the duct tape top and bottom on and am trying to get it stuffed tonight. It doesn't look like much now, but he will be magnificent when he is done!

Progress on Goliath as of Friday, October 9

noreply@blogger.com (Ghostess) — Sat, 10 Oct 2020 03:47:00 +0000

This evening, I finally have been able to get back to work on Goliath. We finished up the duct tape part and picked up a couple of supplies yesterday, and today I took measurements for the frame and got started on that part. I ordered a couple of male wig heads off Amazon that should be here tomorrow or Sunday for this project and another one I have in mind later for next year.

Here's my progress so far: Goliath V.2

Happy weekend!!

Wicked Makers

noreply@blogger.com (Ghostess) — Thu, 08 Oct 2020 12:18:00 +0000

So, I mentioned before that I have been spending a lot of time on Pinterest. Well, I've also been spending a fair amount of time on other sites too -- ya know, for research purposes -- and I stumbled on to the Wicked Makers channel on YouTube while perusing some glowing embers tutorials. Jaimie and Jay have some pretty cool projects, both for Halloween and non-Halloween things, and they make their videos fun and entertaining. Y'all check 'em out!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsxpEPfEgqyXC6jaFKQSKVQ

Slow-going.... but going.

noreply@blogger.com (Ghostess) — Thu, 08 Oct 2020 00:35:00 +0000

So, work for my husband has gotten in the way of my duct taping a copy of the rest of him so I can get rolling on Goliath V.2, plus I lost a day to cooking and cleaning for Tom's birthday, and I have been a little under the weather, but I have managed to get 3 coats of mud on Bird Girl and am now ready to sand most of her. I still have some spots to add mud where I was holding on to her to keep her from falling over while I spread the mud on her. I have tomorrow off from work, so I'll be trying to get some good progress going on that. I have house projects that I'm also trying to work on at the same time, so I get distracted a lot from the Halloween goodness.

Speaking of distractions.... I have wasted so much time looking at Pinterest lately! I have so many new ideas floating through my brain, and it's not helping me focus at all. Most of my website traffic these days comes from Pinterest, so now I feel obligated to check it out. There's an article on FabartDIY.org that I get a lot of visitors from for my Grim statue. I also started a hubpages account, and have published my first article! I got a notification today that it's been featured and selected for a Hubpages Network site, so that's cool. I love to write, but I always find it hard to come up with a good topic, so tutorials will be my main go-to there I think.

Time to get some work done on Bird Girl. Hope y'all are having fun with your projects, haunts, and decorating!

Goliath V.2 has begun!

noreply@blogger.com (Ghostess) — Sat, 03 Oct 2020 03:28:00 +0000

So, some of you may know of my Goliath prop that I made back in 2005. He was pretty impressive, took me 17 days to make, and was my first papier mache prop. Goliath is a gargoyle, the leader of the gargoyles, from the animated Disney series, "Gargoyles", from the mid '90s. I watched it with my son, who was a little guy back then, and I loved it. I had inspiration from another haunter's gargoyle prop, and decided I needed a life-sized Goliath for my display. He was a lot of fun to make, and I will admit, I was quite obsessed about working on him. I worked day and night, every second I could. My house was a wreck, my kids ate a lot of take out, and I got very little sleep. I didn't want to go out, and I almost took him with me when my tenant at the time forced me to go to a poker night at some friends' house. I do not play poker, so I don't know why I had to go! I had to work on Goliath!!! Anyway....

We had a LOT of continuous rain and gusty winds in 2007, thanks to our tropical weather here in sunny Florida, and Goliath was one of the casualties of that deluge of the wet stuff. He was so badly damaged that I had to make the hard decision to let him go. It was heartbreaking. There has been a huge hole in my display that nothing has been able to fill since his departure.

But now, I am going to rebuild him. My husband graciously agreed to be my model for the duct tape dummy for his body, which is great, because my husband is a big guy and perfect for this project's beginning stage. Tonight, I taped his top half, but I ran out of tape, so tomorrow I will pick up more tape and finish the bottom half and get started on creating a better, stronger version of my beloved Goliath. I have learned a lot about papier mache in the past 15 years, so the process should be easier for me.

Wish me luck!

Too many ideas, too many projects to finish!! GAHHHHH!!!!

noreply@blogger.com (Ghostess) — Sun, 27 Sep 2020 18:19:00 +0000

My brain is on Halloween overload right now. I have so many projects that I want to work on, but I'm having a hard time deciding on what to grab and get to work on! I still have to caulk my tile job in the hall bathroom that has taken a month to complete, why am I thinking about Halloween projects before finishing the house project I am almost done with??

I'll tell ya why... All my fellow haunters have been posting their projects and other fun Halloween things and distracting me!! I have found my Halloween spirit after having lost it when I decided to cancel the party this year. I just want to make things now, and put all of my time and energy into feeding my passion for the best damned day of the year. I walk through my garage and see all of my bigger creations that are in desperate need of repair, and think of all of the things I want to create, or recreate in some cases, and it just makes my head spin.

I just pulled Bird Girl out of her corner, and gave her a good spraying of bug spray on her insides to get rid of those pests that have made her their home, and once that has dried, I will bring her into my office and start repairing her yet again, but this time I will actually attach her new bowls that I made like 3 years ago and finish her. I'm thinking she will get a really good coat of spar varnish once I am done, and a fill of Great Stuff on her insides since she is mostly hollow. Perhaps some sort of flat barrier on the bottom to keep future critters from getting up in there.

Time's a wastin'! Better get to it!

What are YOU working on today?

The Home Depot Halloween Style Challenge - Stolloween killed it again!!

noreply@blogger.com (Ghostess) — Sun, 27 Sep 2020 01:10:00 +0000

Guys and ghouls, if you haven't already seen it, get on over to Home Depot's blog and check out Scott Stoll's submission for this year's event. It's fantastic as always!

https://blog.homedepot.com/haunted-mine-dragon-lair-scene/