Ghoul Manor

One of my favorite books as a kid was It's Halloween by Jack Prelutsky. It is a collection of short Halloween poems that I read until it nearly fell apart. It went with me when I moved out and was eventually read countless times to all of my kids. The pages are yellowed and the cover is frightful, but we still pull it out every October to read at least eight times before Halloween. In the book there is a poem about a group of ghouls having a party in a haunted house. So, when I learned of the haunted house shadowbox from Alpha Stamps, I knew how it was to be decorated.

There's a house

upon the hilltop

We will not go inside

For that is where

the witches live,

Where ghosts and goblins hide.

Tonight they have

their party,

All the lights are

burning bright,

But oh we will not

go inside

The haunted house tonight.

The demons there are whirling

And the spirits swirl about.

They sing their songs to Halloween.

"Come join the fun," they shout.

But we do not want to go there

So we run with all our might

And oh we will not go inside

The haunted house tonight.

The facade of the small haunted house shadowbox was altered a little using heavy cardstock. 

I started by cutting out two roof shapes, the larger roof section being double-layered since I wanted that portion to protrude a bit more. The windows were cut out of the new large roof piece and then all of the windows were glued in place. To make the lower roof portion, I started by cutting out a triangular piece of heavy card for the pediment, glued it over the window, then added thin strips of the same heavy card in a rectangular shape between the windows. Tiny scalloped shingles were glued in the center. More thin strips of card were added around the edges of the house, around the top right window, and along the roof pieces. The window sills are double layered like the large roof. 

The house was given a base coat of white acrylic and black on the roof. Because I added the lower roof, the door no longer fit the front of the house. Making the door shorter would have been an easy fix but I ended up cutting a long plank of basswood and gluing it to the bottom of the shadowbox. 

To make the wood siding, I cut several strips of paper in varied widths (it's Chesterville Whitford 12 x 12 and already has a nice aged look about it. I still grunged it up). The strips were glued on and more tiny scalloped shingles were put on the upper roof. The entire inside of the shadowbox was painted black before all of the little ghouls and demons were added, and I decided to give the Pumpkin Girl glowing eyes. Hiding the wiring on the outside of the shadowbox was a snap once I realized I had a small chipboard steamer trunk. It had already been assembled but chopping off the part with the hinged door was easy. I drilled a hole in the trunk so I could feed the LED light through to the inside of the shadowbox.

I cut out the eyes, nose, and mouth of Pumpkin Girl and glued a circle of orange vellum on the back. A length of double sided tape on the back held the light in place, and she was stuck to the shadowbox with foam adhesive circles.

Hope you enjoyed my haunted house on the hilltop with all its goblins and ghouls!

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