[mesmark]

Well, another round of Covid has hit Japan really hard. We were going to return to our regular party style but we decided to do another garden party instead.

So, this year we decided to be creepy clowns (all black and white make-up and costumes) and make the party circus/carnival style.

So far, I’m planning on having a haunted maze kids can walk through after dark. I’m going to use my vampire fang entrance and convert it into a clown mouth … hopefully



I’m thinking that will be the main photo spot.

Inside I will have a bunch of my older decorations and a couple projections.

I ordered a trampoline and a bounce house. The bounce house is a small one good for little kids and I thought the trampoline might be good for the older ones.

I was thinking of making a few little tents to have games inside.



But they rent decent sized tents for $50 each for 3 days. They have red and white striped ones, so I think I’ll save myself the time and storage space.

We’re going to rent a popcorn machine for all-you-can-eat popcorn, and a helium tank so we can have tons of balloons all over the place.

I’m going to have 3 different carnival type games but haven’t made a plan yet for those.

If you guys have any ideas for what I can add, let me know.

[amandap80]

Cool idea Mesmark! I'm not sure how spooky you want it, but clowns always freak me out. Your entrance looks very cool, and the tents and balloons will give great ambiance. Maybe a funhouse mirror for pictures? Can you get circus peanuts in Japan?

[purple1worm]

Awesome!

[Zombie Pumpkins!]

I love a good theme for a Halloween party and costumes. And the creepy circus is a fun idea that you haven't done yet. As usual, you can reuse a lot of general decorations, the giant clown mouth, balloons and tents will instantly set the right scene.

For some reason, the image of vintage Halloween clown costumes comes to mind. Here's some visual inspiration.

[mesmark]

For some reason, the image of vintage Halloween clown costumes comes to mind. Here's some visual inspiration.

Thanks for all the ideas and the pictures! We’re going to go with black and white costumes. But a little simple I guess because we can’t find good fabric. My kids want to dress up in more regular looking clothes because they want to wear them after

So they’ll have white shirts, black skirts, then long striped stockings, long sleeve-type gloves. Some sort of neck piece, and a hat. Something like that.

We can get peanuts but I don’t think Japanese people will get the reference. So no peanuts. Instead we rented a big popcorn machine and plan to have all-you-can-eat popcorn going the whole time!

[mesmark]

I got to work on the entrance.

After thinking about it, in my original drawing, the face should be white but the eyes should also be white.

So, I decided to do away with the eyebrows and make angry eyebrows in a clown-ish fashion



I probably could have done some research … too much gas pedal and I just went with that drawing.



Big problem is that the teeth are curved, but the face is flat. To make it curved would be a task! Or require a ton of styrofoam.

In the end, I think it should work.



I had imagined the hair being green. But multicolored pieces might have been better. Gotta move on though.

It’s huge! Bottom of fangs to tip is about 11’ and I’ll set the top part at about 5’10” high. So it should be around 17-18’ high.

I’m going to pin black fabric inside the lip edges and wrap it around the teeth to give a little more of a curved/connected mouth and hug to the teeth … it might work

[mesmark]

So, renting tents seemed like a good idea but a bit of a pain with shipping back and forth.

They have these giant parachute type things they use at festivals here. And I think I can drape that over a regular camping style tent to make a decent carnival tent.



Slightly cheaper than renting a tent. But no shipping back and forth to the company. So much cheaper

They had different color options, but just 4 colors or 8 colors. I chose the 4 color option because it seemed like it would have larger individual sections. Bigger stripes.

For this year, I’ll use them as is and in the future I might try spray paint and see if I can get them orange and black. It’s a windbreaker type material, so it might not take to painting well.

I have one tent and I’m gonna borrow 2 more from some friends. They’re square and open on all sides, like my drawing above.



The trampoline and bounce house arrived! I opened up the sipping box for the bounce house and the colors were different. I ordered the blue and gray one.



But purple and gray is even better! There were only 2 in the product description. (The other one was red and blue.)

Anyway … wait!? … what’s this mark mean??



Nooooooooo! Are you kidding me?!?! I thought I ordered one WITH a blower … it’s gonna take 2 weeks to inflate this thing

[sloaner]

Looks great so far.

[mesmark]

You guys got me all nervous so I went out and tested the tent option.



And with the cover



With some balloons and maybe a flag at the top, it should work.

I have lots of fabric that I can set up at the corners, pinned to the top and tied up like curtains to hide the tent legs. That will be an “if we have time” option.

[mesmark]

I was also thinking of making a few more mascots but not ZP mascots

Blasphemy!

… last year I made an open mouth version of the Season mascot and before I painted it orange, I thought it looked a bit like a ghost.



And it got me thinking that I could tweak this style a bit and make some little ghost guys as well to go with my pumpkins

Here’s the plan:



I’m not super happy about their top twirly bits. I might make some changes to that part.

[mesmark]

I made a new game:
the Spider Launch 🕷

Here’s the raw contraption:


It might be easier to see how it works like that. Hit the angled board, which will flip the launch plate forward. Set your spider on the launch pad and let’er fly!

Here it is painted and decorated.






I might have gone overboard with the webs and spiders but it’s done and the kids should have fun launching spiders

I’m gonna get 2-3 jars and catch real spiders before the event. When kids come up, I’ll ask them to grab a spider to launch (from the jars) … as a joke

[Lala]

Wow! I love your parties Mark! We need a minions party some day - could you imagine???!!

[mesmark]

I actually didn’t make much more for the party, but worrying about the weather and trying to get everything set up in a short time frame was pretty stressful.

I made one little shooting gallery type game. Kids had to shoot a nerf gun at some clowns. If they knocked down the clown, they won!



After that, there was a lot of preparation for the outdoor haunted walk. I used bamboo poles to make the maze. I put them into the ground and then wrapped the walls using black farming plastic.



One week before the party, 6 guys came over and helped me build the framework for the entrance and the collapsing wall.



The ground isn’t level, so it was a pretty wonky piece of work but we did get the clown face up.

[mesmark]

On the day, it was sunny, but we had pretty high winds in the afternoon as we were trying to set up. Things kept getting blown over and I wasn’t sure if we could put up the entrance part or not

But we did it anyway, and luckily it didn’t blow over or break

Here are some shots from the party:











My wife has always wanted to rent a proper popcorn machine for our party, so this seemed like the perfect/suiting chance.



She was pretty happy

I had probably the best set up so far for my giant spider.



And of course, we had cookies