#ADifferentHalloween
Halloween is the best holiday, HANDS DOWN. What can beat free candy while scaring the living daylights out of your neighbors? My family always begins Halloween projects months in advance, so our basement is generally filled with wood scraps, reindeer motors, lights, insulation foam, spray paint, and paper mache supplies. When the Covid-19 pandemic shut everything down in April 2020, our family's first thought was not related to toilet-paper or Lysol - it was "WE MUST SAVE HALLOWEEN!!!"
May I present our socially-distant 2020 Halloween solution, the Covid Cobra Candy Chute! We named him Fluffy.
The Covid Cobra spits full-sized candy bars at trick-or-treaters after flying down a 2-story chute (made from corrugated irrigation pipe) from inside the house. Trick-or-treaters ring the wireless doorbell to let us know they are outside (see video below), and there is PureHell hand sanitizer available.
To complete our pandemic Halloween yard scene, I also made Coronaviruses for the front porch and a graveyard of canceled events/activities.
*Someone needs to help that skull wear a mask correctly.
Building the Cobra:
As you can see, Fluffy the Cobra is made from pool noodles, water bottles, Amazon boxes, and anything else we could find in the house worth recycling. He slips over the back of any dining chair for stability. Aluminum foil helped me to sculpt more details. Our whippet was slightly concerned.
Paper Mache:
A good neighbor donated some old newspapers to our cause. This step took about 3 bottles of white Elmers glue (mixed with water) and 24 hours to dry.
Corpsing:
Every scary Halloween prop needs some disturbing decaying flesh, right? I melted grocery bags and a plastic drop cloth with a heat gun to created this effect. Next, I applied a coat of black spray paint.
Finishing Touches:
Once the black paint dried, I dry-brushed lighter metallic colors over the corpsed plastic to bring out the detail. The lower teeth are made from Instamorph moldable plastic, and the blood drips are painted hot glue. The eyes are made from milk jug pieces with battery-operated colored lights behind.
For the sign, I used a soldering iron to carve the lettering into styrofoam, painted the whole thing black, and went back over with grey sponge-paint. We thought a wireless doorbell button would be fun and practical.
Halloween Night:
I used solar-powered torches (placed 6-feet apart) to help the neighborhood kids social-distance while waiting. We also made our own music - my husband played organ, my son played violin sound effects, and I made snake sounds and played maracas/Aztec death whistle. We had about 300 trick-or-treaters on Halloween night - parents and kids thought the whole experience was really cool and couldn't stop talking about it days afterward!
Overall, I'm extremely proud of the way our Covid Cobra turned out - this pandemic did NOT get in the way of our festivities! Happy Halloween Everyone!!!
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