Introduction: How to Make a Graveyard

About: I love to learn how to do stuff, and show people how to make what i learn.

How to make a graveyard scary enough to make kids think about skipping trick-or-treating there, yet cool enough to make your neighbors jealous of your display.

Step 1: Plan It Out

 Plan what you want to do. Question yourself how you want your graveyard to look and picture it in your mind.

   In this case, I'm going to have a graveyard with a variety of different things. I'll include graves, dummies and a hearse. You don't necessarily need any dummies or cars, but it sure does make your graveyard stand out a lot more than any other one.

  Tips
  - Try not to have to much of a variety.
  - Don't add too much. It can get to look sloppy.

Step 2: Add Your Graves

 If your making graveyard, then your defiantly going to need to have graves. (Or else it would be just a yard.)
   Tips
   - You might want to have a variety of graves (different shapes, different sayings).
   - It's always nice to have graves that talk, light up, ect.
   - Don't put too many graves in one spot. Spread it out.

Step 3: Add Your Dummies

 When adding dummies, it makes your graveyard more realistic, scary, and cool. If you don't know how to make a dummy, you can view one of my tutorials explaining how.

           Tips
  - Just like graves, its always nice to have a variety,
  - You don't have to put all your dummies out at once. In my case, I'm only putting the front lawn dummies up, then the dummy in the hearse up later. (No picture, sorry).
  - Old people are scarier. :)

Step 4: Decorate Your House

 To add a better thrill, you might want to decorate your house. I only put up some spider webs, hung a sign, and hung a skeleton.

Step 5: Add a Coffin

 Although it's not necessary, it adds more realism and makes the yard more scary.
       I constructed this coffin a couple of years ago using just wood and spay paint. It only takes a couple hours to make, costs about $20 to make, and adds a nice touch. My coffin isn't meant to open, but that doesn't mean that yours shouldn't be meant to.
  Tips

  - If creating a coffin that opens, add a dead dummy to the inside.
  - Add ripped up cloth and blood on the inside for a better effect.
  - Tilt the coffin to its side using a piece of wood or a log so everyone can see it.



Step 6: Add the Cars

                                          -The Hearse-
 Just like many of the other steps in this Instructable, this is not necessary but makes a graveyard more believable. In this case, we used a 1985 Buick hearse and just pulled it up in the lawn at an angle. We also used a real 1800's coffin to give a real scare.

    Tips
  - You might not want to include a real hearse or a coffin (some people find it offensive).
  - The older the better.



Step 7: Add Lights

 Ya, it's 100% necessary. It adds a creepy feeling, lets people see your display at night, and brings it all together.

  The best lights to use are black lights, blue lights, and red lights. These colors give the best "Halloween Feel", and give a glowing scary effect. We used about 7 lights in total, but i didn't get that many pictures of them.

        Tips
  Well, there really is nothing to say about putting lights up except to try to hide any cords or wires.

Step 8: Finishing Touches

 This step could be broken down a lot, but I didn't want to have a billion steps. So, I put it all-together into one.

 To finish up my graveyard, the first thing I did was rake the leaves (lawn filled with leaves again 2 hours later) . You might not want to do this, but I think it looks better.
 I then put up more spiderwebs and spread them around.
 I set up chains to restrict people from walking in the lawn.
 I put 1 fog machine in the fake coffin, and another on the lawn.
 I set up a CD player with scary music (a must do!)
 I carved a pumkin
 I got some candy
 And lastly fixed anything that looked wrong or needed to be adjusted.

    Tips
  - You might want to make a fence instead of a chain to block of your yard. (Chain is a money saver)
  - Pick actual scary music to play. Not the radio.
  - Just do whatever you want.

Step 9: Get Your Actors/Actresses

 Another important step is to get some real people and not just dummies. This part shouldn't be done till Halloween day, but I didn't want it to be the final step.

 Have your actors/actresses dress up and act. They can do anything from acting like a police officer to acting like a zombie arising form the grave to just simply scaring the crap out of people.

 We had 3 actors. Micheal Myers, The Crypt Keeper, and some crazy clown guy. After everybody got there, we noticed people become a lot more scared, and more people come to see the display.

(sorry, no pictures)


Step 10: The Finished Result

 If you've done it all correctly, you should be happy with your overall result. From here, you should just wait for trick-or-treaters to come.

 We got about 200 trick-or-treaters total, and about 50 people who drove just to see it.

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