Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Halloween Preview: The Wolf Lair

Well here we are, one night away from the big event, and we barely (and for us, sparsely) got it together in time ... This year, Halloween just came too soon, barreling at us and caught us unaware and unprepared. Instead of spending much of late September decorating (as we usually do), this year we were in the big clean up and rearranging mode, which took up much needed Halloween time. But anyway, with a manic push last week, we got the house cleaned up, a lot of Halloween decorations up and threw our annual Halloween Haunted Housewarming party last Saturday. Though hastily organized and not as big as previous years, we were quite content with the results and had a fun, relaxing evening with friends, topped off by watching one of my all time faves, William Castle's The Tingler which for me is always a treat, no matter what time of year. (Recommended seasonal viewing from a previous post)

The Wolf Lair is a new acquisition this year to our collection of Halloween Houses, and though Fernymoss didn't have the time to put up the whole displays (alas, the cemetery didn't happen this year), what he did with the Witch/Wolf Lairs I think is pretty remarkable. Perched atop the newly installed media centre, this particular display contains the witches' lair house and a spooky country scene integrated with a haunted barn and various people celebrating Halloween ... all guarded over by this pack of watchful wolves lurking in the nearby woods. I particularly like the reflections captured in the 'river' that leads up to the Witches' Lair (coming soon), which at least justifies having had to use the flash to take these shots. Unfortunately the flash also cancels out all the cool spooky lighting the pieces themselves emit (nifty LEDs, you know!) but it seems to be the only way to get the detail these pieces demand.

I should have a few more of these to post tomorrow (the whole view of this scene, with more detail) as well as some pre-Beggars' Night shots of the Halloween loot we are giving out this year (bigger and better!). We also have to get some good shots of 'Skeledog' (her highness Queen Pepa approximately, in case you hadn't guessed!) to include. She's become quite fond of her new outfit over the past few days and seems to enjoy lounging around in it (see previous post). And soon ... for Halloween Night itself, we should have this year's version of Grizelda's lair assembled on the porch, so stop by again soon ...

Photos and Arrangement by Fernymoss. Taken 28 October, 2007.

4 comments:

Family Man said...

Hi IVG.

The wolf lair looks very good. I'm looking forward to seeing Grizelda's lair and more pictures of Queen Pepa. Hope ya'll have a lot of fun.

Larry Kollar said...

Wow, I wish we had that kind of time & energy to decorate like that!

Iowa Victory Gardener said...

Hey there FM and FAR! Glad you liked these shots and I'll convey the props to Fernymoss, since he's totally responsible for all the hard work. We usually do a huge spooky cemetery as well, but just didn't have the time this year ...

And FAR, if you think this is decorating, this ain't nuthin compared to a usual year. We only took out about maybe 1/3 of our Halloween décor this year and it still looked plenty spooky, hehe.

olivia said...

Looks fantastic IVG.