FCG's at Hill House

	When looking for hand material, I knew weight was going to be an issue. I had read on one of the other FCG builder's sites, that straws worked well for hands. I just roughly cut the palms into palm shapes and slit the side of the cardboard with a carpenter's knife where I wanted to jam the straws. I pushed them in about an inch and a half so they would be sturdy. I didn't want to go to the trouble of making Isabelle and then have her fall apart!
	Here I just spray painted the hands white.
	Okay. For this stage I just wrapped 1 to 2 inch wide strips of my fabric around the hands. This is not difficult. First just do the fingers and then the palms. I stapled the cloth at the beginning and then at the end of the wrap. You can also see that the left hand here had thinner fingers than the right. I didn't like how puffy the fingers were so I simply stapled them together more...Looking back, it might have been a lot better to just leave the hands uncovered like in the above photo.
	Here is Isabelle's head right after carving her eyes out. (That does sound awful, doesn't it!) I bought the Styrofoam head at a beauty supply store for three bucks. Her eye's were closed so there was a bump for each eyelid. I simply shaved them out little by little with a carpenter's knife. You really can't mess up here because once the cloth goes on, it covers all your mistakes...(Unless you cut her nose off or something...but even that might be the look you're going for!) My head had a tilt to it too and I thought it would be cool, but it doesn't really show now that she's finished.
	For the gluing process I made many mistakes. I found the easiest thing was to wet the cheesecloth/fabric, squeeze out some of the water and then form the fabric on the face using a glass of water and a paint brush to "paint" the fabric in to the position you want it. The wet cheesecloth will stick to the Styrofoam somewhat. Then, I just poured glue strait from the bottle onto the face and painted it on all over using water to dilute when necessary. The eyes were a little difficult due to the size of the sockets, so I just pushed the fabric in as far as I could and soaked it with glue...(my husband's modeling for me)
	Here's the finished face. My brush wasn't totally clean and a tad of paint came out in the eyes. Being a perfectionist, it bugged the crap out of me, but later I found out that the FCG ghost can take a lot of mistakes and still look fantastic. They are very forgiving!
	Just a shot of the coat hangers we used. (In case any of you creative and capable ghost makers don't know what a coat hanger looks like! By the way, if you think you can't do this, don't worry about it. I was trying not to get my hopes up, but mine turned out awesome and If I can do this, you can too!)
	Here is Isabelle after we draped her.
	Another shot of the draping process. Just have fun with this. Nothing you do can't be taken off and redone. Play with it until you get the look you want. I thought she looked too bulky up top with not enough down below so I changed her a bit. I just stapled here and there to hold the fabric in place. It doesn't take much.
	Here is a shot of her face. Isn't she pretty? We used 5 watt blue LED's bought at radio shack and "drilled" holes from front to back (important) with a knitting needle. (on one of the eyes, when the needle exited, it took a large chunk of Styrofoam with it. but because its behind her head, no problem). We ran our LED's separately. Each eye had its LED hooked up to the wire that went through the head and then hooked to a 9volt connector. Each night we just snapped on the two 9 volts and that was that. I have to admit though, once the batteries dimmed, she looked better. It all depends on the strength of eye light you want. I think dimmer is better...We flew her for about two weeks before Halloween and the batteries are still working great...
	A side shot.
	Another close shot of her head. Covering the neck well was my first priority. But her shroud was too thick so I ended up tying a string around her neck loosely and pulling up the fabric to look more like a cloak's hood.
	Here is a shot of her once I got rid of some of the bulk around her head.
	Here's a picture of our hanging frame. Just a square of PVC painted black.
	Here she is from behind. You can see the LED wires hanging. We let them hang there when she's flying. You totally can't tell. You could safety pin them up out of the way if you wished. (sorry about the messy house, I didn't realize it was so bad until I uploaded the pictures!)
	A better shot of the framework. The frame is really quite simple. We bought the motor from Grainger and it works fine, but we think it might be a little overkill for this project. We're going to try a Rotisserie motor next time or the like. We plan on making more of these and want to keep the expense down. Although, there is a lot to be said for reliability! You can see in this picture that her hands look too skeletal for her face, so my advice is to just cover them more with the fabric...
	I forgot to mention that we tried to "blue" Isabelle's fabric and it was a disaster. Being the Moron that I am, I didn't listen to the instructions as I thought I knew better. I bought some Mrs. Stewarts bluing and soaked the fabric in it. If a little bluing is good, than a LOT of bluing is much better! Right? No way. Then I washed it in the washer without soap. It just took out all the bluing. Then I soaked it again in the bluing and squeezed it and put it in the dryer. It had a slight blue tinge to it but once held under the black light, it didn't show up at all. So I tossed it in the sink with some bleach...(I know, I know, you're not supposed to use bluing with bleach! Like I said, I'm a Moron.) to get out some of the bluing. That helped, but she still didn't show up well in the dark. I couldn't find any blue fluorescent paint so as a last ditch effort, I used Halloween fluorescent hair spray, which worked pretty well. (Thank God. I was getting a little frustrated!) The fabric didn't stick together (they use the term "hair spray" very loosely) and it showed up under the black light quite well. This was a disaster the whole way through. Listen to the directions and just wash your fabric with laundry soap. That will probably work better. (sarcasm) We'll try that next time. But the hairspray saved our project in time for Halloween...I have to admit, I liked her look better before she was blue! But I still love her...*editors note: We did just use laundry soap for the next three FCG's and it worked beautifully! I found some 24" black lights at The Depot (in the under cabinet lighting section) for fifteen bucks and after taking off the clear protective cover over the bulb, they were very bright. For me there is no such thing as too bright on an FCG as ours need to be seen from far away. We are very lucky not to have any street lights by our haunt too...
	Here's the graveyard where Isabelle haunts after sunset. She has a particular attachment to the old oak on the hill...We're in the process of finding out more about her, her attachment to this site, and how she died. It's quite tragic, I'm sure. We'll have to head over to the library and see what we can find. We'll post her story as soon as we uncover it...