This was our first attempt at a haunted house and I enjoyed every minute of planning and building this walk through. The map below shows the rough layout of all of the props and gives you an idea of the layout.

Click on the red arrows or the links below to view pictures from inside the house.

1. skeleton - The skeleton was our door greeting this year. It is a 3ft plastic skeleton that we dressed in some of our daughters old clothes. I used black yarn hung from the ceiling to hold him in place.
2. hallway - When you turned left, this is the view down the hallway. Spiderwebs hung from the ceiling and pictures of scary portraits are hung on the wall. At the end of the hall are our ghost bride and groom who are floating over the couch.
3. ghost - This is a close up of one of the hanging ghosts that we made. They were created by painting Styrofoam skulls with blacklight paint. We then stretched out a coat hanger and attached it to the bottom of the skull. The cloth on the body is shredded cheesecloth soaked in Rit whitener.
4. table - This is a table that we covered with a white sheet. The lamp and candles on the table were some that we had laying around the house. We used the table and sheet to hide our stereo that played our haunted house music.
5. dolls - These are two of my daughter's baby dolls sitting in my daughter's rocking chair. I took red finger paint and smeared it around their mouths to simulate blood. Their eyes are neon colored stickers that you can find at office supply stores.
6. deer and ghost - Another homemade ghost in front of three deer heads. The deer were already located in this corner so nothing special was done there. I did put neon stickers (like those used on the dolls) on the deer's eyes so that they would glow in the blacklight.

If you still haven't seen enough, here are links to videos of a 'daytime' walk-through and a 'nighttime' walk-through. I turned off the fog machines for the nighttime walk-through so that you can see the props (it's a lot scarier with the fog).

Additional pictures can be found here.

After about two weeks of researching, here is a list of songs that are suitable for a Halloween themed party. Some of these were dropped from my final play list due to lyrics or time constraints (I wanted them to fit on 2 CDs). Here is the raw list...

Theme Songs

• Addams Family Theme Song
• Beetlejuice Theme Song
• Casper The Friendly Ghost Theme Song
• Ghostbusters Theme Song
• Halloween Theme Song
• The Munsters Theme Song
• The Nightmare Before Christmas - This Is Halloween
• Rocky Horror Picture Show - Time Warp
• Scooby Doo Theme Song
• Tales From the Crypt Theme Song

The Rest

• AC/DC - Boogie Man
• AC/DC - Evil Walks
• AC/DC - Hell Ain't a Bad Place to Be
• AC/DC - Hells Bells
• AC/DC - Night Prowler
• Alice Cooper - Feed My Frankenstein
• Alice Cooper - Poison
• Alice Cooper - The Man Behind the Mask
• Alice Cooper - Welcome To My Nightmare
• Andrew Gold - Witches Witches Witches
• Atlanta Rhythm Section - Spooky
• Bobby Pickett - Monster Mash
• Bow Wow Wow - I Want Candy
• Carlos Santana - Black Magic Woman
• Charlie Daniels Band - The Devil Went Down to Georgia
• Charlie Daniels Band - The Legend of Wooley Swamp
• Chopin - Funeral March
• Crash Test Dummies - Peter Pumpkinhead
• Cream - Strange Brew
• Creedence Clearwater Revival - Bad Moon Rising
• Creedence Clearwater Revival - I Put a Spell on You
• Dave Matthews Band - Halloween
• Donovan - Season of the Witch
• The Doors - People Are Strange
• The Drifters - Love Potion Number 9
• Eagles - Witchy Woman
• Edgar Winter Group - Frankenstein
• Edwyn Collins - A Girl Like You
• Eels - My Beloved Monster
• Gene Simmons - Haunted House
• INXS - Devil Inside
• Joe Satriani - Driving at Night
• KC And The Sunshine Band - I'm Your Boogie Man
• Leon Redbone - The Witch Queen of New Orleans
• Men At Work - Who Can It Be Now
• Michael Jackson - Thriller
• Mitch Ryder - Devil With a Blue Dress On
• Oingo Boingo - Dead Man's Party
• Oingo Boingo - Weird Science
• Ozzy Osborne - Bark At The Moon
• Ozzy Osbourne - Mr. Crowley
• Ozzy Osborne - Zombie Stomp
• The Ramones - Pet Cemetary
• Ray Stevens - Sittin' Up With The Dead
• Reverend Horton Heat - The Halloween Dance
• The Rolling Stones - Sympathy for the Devil
• Rockwell - Somebodys Watching Me
• Ross Bagdaserian, Jr. - Witch Doctor
• Sam the Sham - Little Red Riding Hood
• Sam the Sham - Wooly Bully
• Sheb Wooley - One-Eyed One-Horned Flying Purple People Eater
• The Specials - Ghost Town
• Type O Negative - Black No. 1
• Squirrel Nut Zippers - Hell
• Steppenwolf - Magic Carpet Ride
• Stevie Wonder - Superstition
• Van Halen - Runnin' With the Devil
• Van Morrison - Saint James Infirmary
• Warren Zevon - Werewolves Of London
• Wilson Pickett - In The Midnight Hour

I'm not going to go into too much detail with food but here are some ideas that my wife and I came up with...

Green Eyeball Ice Cubes

This recipe is my interpretation of the classic 'eyeball ice cube.' Instead of dropping pealed grapes into ice trays, now you can have the ice cube itself look like an eye. Here is what you need:

• a deviled egg tray or Easter egg decorating tray (see picture)
• 1 jar maraschino cherries (I've tried this recipe with different candy, such as Gummy Savers and jelly beans, but they don't work well. Even though the eyes looked great, eating soggy candy pulp was not very pleasant.)
• 1 cup water
• green food color

Instructions

1. Use a knife to cut the cherries in half.
2. Rinse the cherry slices to remove all of the red syrup.
3. Add one cherry slice into the bottom of each egg holder.
4. Add one drop of green food color to 1 cup of water and stir.
5. Fill each egg holder with the colored water.
6. Place the egg tray in the freezer until the water freezes.

Cupcake Witch

My daughter was set on having a witch birthday cake. We couldn't find bakery cakes that we liked and didn't like any of the recipes on the Internet for a witch cake so we decided to do something different. Instead of a birthday cake, we made birthday cupcakes that we pushed together into the shape of a witch and decorated with frosting, sprinkles, Twizzlers, and jellybeans. The finished cake turned out really great and required no knife to cut. We liked this idea so much that we'll probably do similar 'cakes' in the future.

Here is a mock-up that I made beforehand to get an idea of how to arrange the cupcakes and the finished cake with icing and decorations.