Jun 13

Okay, this year is your year! You’re determined to take home the prize for the most creative Halloween costume this year, and you don’t care who gets hurt in the process! (Sorry, seasonal humor!) Let’s ponder a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing for ways to make this year’s costume one for the ages!

My best strategy for winning a Halloween costume contest is to be overtly original. If you buy your costume off the rack either online or off, you’re pretty much doomed to failure. If they’ve seen it, they’ve seen it! Originality is everything here, and you can’t afford to be like the crowd if you want to win the contest!

My favorite way to win is to come up with someone famous who is in the news recently, probably not for their charitable work either! Capitalizing on their misfortune is - well it’s exactly what you want to do here! Chances are, they did it to themselves, and we as fans owe it to them to keep them on the public’s radar! Some ideas of just how this would work could include for instance, Lindsay Lohan looking for a fix; Paris Hilton in jail house garb, (fully accessorized, of course!); Michael Vick hauling his dead dog behind him (fake, of course); or perhaps the Obama girl.

The key here is to make sure you can be recognized as who or what you’re trying to portray. If they have to figure you out, you’re dead before you’ve begun. So that begs the question, “What if I don’t look anything like the person I’m lampooning!?!” Well, then either the costume itself has to carry you or you need to do a bang-up job with makeup and hair. Not only that, but you need to be sold out to the idea of portraying this person. That means acting like they would act, talking like they would talk, and in general becoming that person for the duration of the party. (Or at least until the judging is done!)

Make sure you fit into this costume concept. If you’re trying to portray Will Smith when your body more closely resembles Norbit, then we’ve got a problem from the get-go! Also, if your costume has you exposed more than you might be normally, make sure you can live with this. If you’re going to dress up as Britney Spears and are uncomfortable showing the amount of everything she shows, then rethink your costume! If you look the least bit uncomfortable either in concept or execution, people will notice.

Jun 13

The sky is darkening. You feel a chill and ghostly horrors in the air as the moon shines brightly on this cloudless night. It is the last night of October, October 31st. It is officially Halloween night and you have decided to have a hauntingly exciting Halloween party. How ghoulishly delightful! But where do you start in planning your Halloween holiday celebration. Here are 10 steps to help you in planning a great Halloween Party that will have all those ghosts, wicked witches and grim goblins screaming with delight.

Step 1: Halloween Party Kickoff: Think about who the party is for - for you or your children? An adult Halloween party will be quite different from a children’s Halloween party when it comes to planning the Halloween theme of the party, Halloween decorations, Halloween recipes and beverages. Adults and older children usually love to be frightened, but that is not the same for smaller children. So when planning your event keep the ages of your guests in mind. Once you have that figured out, now it is time to pick the date, time and place of your Halloween party. And don’t forget the guest list.

Step 2: Halloween invitations: This is where you can have fun and set the mood of your unforgettable night of horror chills and thrills by sending out unique and spookily inviting Halloween party invitations. You can purchase them or make some yourself with some construction paper and some glitter markers, or how about buying some inexpensive Halloween paper eye masks and writing the words on the back. Include all the important information such as date, time, place and a request for RSVP to your Halloween party.

Step 3: Halloween party food and recipes: now the party would not be a party without a lot of great Halloween munchies. Plan a menu and write out your shopping list. Try to do as much in advance as possible, and try to pick Halloween recipes that can be made ahead and stored or frozen. And again, think of the ages of your guests - there are a lot of fun Halloween foods for both kids and adults. Here might be the place to use up some of those Halloween pumpkin guts.

Step 4:Haunted Halloween Pumpkins: plan to buy your pumpkins early to get the best selection. By selecting a variety of shapes and sizes of pumpkins, you will be able to make a variety of interesting jack-o-lanterns ghosts. And don’t forget about those miniature pumpkins, they can make great party favors or Halloween decorations also. And the day before the party, carve your pumpkins and double check you have enough candles or use small flashlights to show off their ghostly grins.

Step 5: Halloween Costumes: there is always something exciting about putting on a Halloween costume and taking on another identity. So prepare yourself and your families Halloween party costumes in advance so that you don’t have to run around in a panic trying to put something together at the last minute. It is easy to find a lot of great Halloween costume ideas that will not cost a lot of money or time.