The (not so) secret behind the Mourning Skeleton.

    Everybody has a skeleton in their closet. I have them in the spare bathroom, the work shop, back closet and under the bed. One of my skeletons has generated a lot of email to me. That would be the Mourning Skeleton :

  I received 3 emails, today alone, saying how it was a favorite and asking how it is done. Here is the dirty little secret to my most talked about prop of 2011 :

   It all started out with three Walgreen's skeletons :

   I got a great deal on these thanks to a loyal follower who recognized my name at the Walgreen's in Johnson City Tennessee. The one on the far right went straight out to the front porch as a door greeter and the one on the far left spent the Halloween season trying to escape from a coffin  :

   The skele in the middle hung out in the house with us. I just knew it was destined for greatness (well as great as a skele can get). That skele went on to become the bony witch in one of my posts:

A lurker who follows my website but remains anonymous:

A witch who has her tea party interrupted by Jason :

And finally as a quasi permanent Halloween Party decoration amid the apothecary :

This was consensual I assure you.

   Here, the future Mourning Skeleton sat and entertained party guests and visitors for weeks. 

   Then came Halloween day at 1:30pm. M was on her way home to start applying my zombie makeup. I had been putting props out and adjusting the cemetery since 7:30am. Everything that I had planned to put out and set up was complete. I just happened to notice a bare spot in the cemetery near the coffin. I came in the house to grab a big pumpkin to take up the space when I noticed the skeleton still attached to the lamp. I quickly popped the wire that was holding it down, threw it over my shoulder, and headed for the bare spot. 

   At first, I had planned to lay it on the ground with its arms over it's chest. I set it down in the spot and started to head back in for a wire to hold the hands in place. That is when I saw that a piece of creepy cloth had stuck to the skele's back and that both hands were covering it's face like it was crying. The black string loop that comes out of the top of the skeleton's head (from which you can hang them) had tangled up in the bony  fingers as I carried it. I re positioned the creepy cloth stuck to it's spine, like a shawl, and I liked what I saw:

   There was a spare piece of rebar nearby and I just added it for stability. I moved an LED candle from lid of the nearby coffin and I was done. It took me all of 5 minutes to make (quite by accident) my most talked about prop of 2011. It even made the local newspaper (which I will be posting about Friday).

   Of course the lighting and the fog helped out tremendously, but I have to admit, I am fond of this one as well. I think that this prop (or some form of it ) will be making return visits to the Wicked Woods Cemetery for years to come.