Ghoulish Guest: The Martha Project

Rounding out this devilish guest posting series is none other than Jen of The Martha Project. She is one of those few souls who are tweeting about Halloween before the leaves change color (so in other words just as crazy as me). Of course I asked her to share some of her Halloween lovelies below. Hope you enjoyed this gholish guest series. I'm back next week with more of my own gory details.

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It was Halloween of 2001 when I started to really take the holiday seriously. That was the year that Martha Stewart put a tombstones tutorial in her October magazine. I knew that I had to make them. That was also the year that I thought of going big and began to think of long term decoration goals.

Throughout the years I have used magazines, catalogs, and websites as inspiration for my own yard. Since online research is available year round, it is not unusual for me to start researching projects in February. Nothing warms my cold winter body like finding the perfect project to put down on the list.



Though tombstones were my first project, they are not my favorite. I enjoy the end result, but the steps to get them there? Not so much. They are very time consuming but one can’t have a cemetery without them, so every year a few new ones get added.

I love to take different parts of my yard, walkway, and porch and transform them into a scene. The yard becomes a cemetery complete with tombstones, mausoleum, pop up skeletons, and the pumpkinhead scarecrow. The walkway becomes a walkthrough funeral with grieving skeleton wife. The porch becomes the fortune teller’s living room.



If you make it through all of that (and some don’t) you get your candy through a candy chute. I love all of the reactions from children and parents alike. As a matter of fact, I’ve already had people walking by to see if I’m set up yet!

Which I’m not. I need to work on that. Maybe I’ll go do that now……