Haunted Tree

A new prop for this year is a 'haunted tree' (for lack of a better term). While discussing themes this year, one of the things that popped in my head for the cemetary was some sort of scary tree similar to the one found in the movie Sleepy Hollow. I wasn't sure where to start with this thing, but thankfully my wife had some good ideas to get the ball rolling. At the base of the tree is an old unused Christmas tree stand. The structure of the tree was made using cardboard concrete forms (12" and 8"), a lot of tape, some PVC, chicken wire and Monster Mud. What is Monster Mud you say? It is essentially a 5 parts joint compound to 1 part exterior latex paint mixture. We 'paper-mache'd' the tree using a drop cloth that was cut into strips and dipped into the Monster Mud. The tree measures about 7ft tall and about 6.5ft wide. It was an interesting (and messy) project and took around 10-12 hours to make. I have no idea where I will be storing this.