Some Costume Making Tips

Tips to making great costumes:
For inexpensive clothes you may not own check out thrift stores, and pawn shops. Also check out clearance sections for flawed items or old out-of-style options. Halloween may be the only day you wear any of these clothes so if you want to be Tine Turner and find a full sequin dress on sale because it is missing a few sequins buy it! The savings are completely worth the deal for an outfit you may only wear once. Also if you want to make your costumes completely by hand, check out the scrap bins! Fabric is super cheap there and usually they have some pretty big pieces. I was a pirate one year and got my headband that I made from fabric for like 20 cents. Make-up for women can also totally make a costume. Again, check out the sale bin at stores, usually crazy colors of eye shadow go one sale super cheap and these maybe the colors that match your outfit for makeup. Halloween will be the only day you can pull these colors off.
Always bargain hunt what you cannot find in your closet. Also, check your grandparent’s closets! Those are great resources. For instance one year I wanted to be someone from the 60s era, and my grandma still hand a bunch of clothes that all fit me from back then! I have to most authentic costume of anyone who had the same costume as me.
Finally my last advice is to buy inexpensive pieces from costume stores, sometimes even toy stores. Example, one year I was a pirate and I found a skill metal ring for 99 cents. My friend was a cop and she found her badge, gun, holster, and handcuffs in a set at the Dollar Tree for a dollar. The whole costume does not always have to be hand made, small pieces can be purchased to ad to the costume without bringing the costs up too high.

A Great Halloween Blog Post

Hello Blog Readers,

While doing research to give a shot out to another blog I came across a wonderful blog post about turning ones two car garage into a a haunted house. Here is a link to pictures and the actual blog post:
http://www.halloween-blog.com/halloween-props-lot-create-your-own-haunted-house/149/

I have never actually thought about the possibility of an affordable haunted house in your own home. While reading about his lot, I realized that this is actually a great idea because I have heard of many people setting up a haunted house in their house or backyard then charging a small admission or “donations.” Then proceeds could be used to make back all the money spent on the decorations or even donated to charity. I saw on HGTV these people who made their backyard into a haunted house, the initial investment is a lot but each year you can reuse most of the decorations, and they accepted a small donation from everyone that went through it and donated all proceeds to a local charity.
What is great about this blog is the fact that it gives a link to a Youtube.com video of the set-up, and then plenty of links on where to buy everything. Reading more into the blog it is actually a lot of this Halloween blogger’s biggest Halloween collection. He has spent thousands of dollars over years to obtain this collection, and now he is selling the whole bulk as one set. There are prop effects, life size figures, a scary witch head on a stick and many other things.
If the lot is sold by the time you get to this he also has several good advertisements for products to buy that will help you build a haunted house of your own. You should definitely check some of them out.

October is only 5 days away!!

Jennifer

Shout Out to Another Blog

Hello Blog Readers,

So I thought it would be very interesting to give a shout out to another blog writing that also likes Halloween as much as I do. While doing some research I stumbled across a blog called, “Old Fashion Halloween.” Some of the eye catching aspects of this website are very intricate pictures of Halloween designs.

Scrolling all the way to the bottom you can see this cute Halloween walkway up to the front door of a house. This design shows the inexpensive paper lanterns I have discussed in a previous blog. This is actually a discussion about inexpensive decorations; the way the walkway was designed was clearance items and the cheap paper products. If you would like to read more I would check out the article that is entitled, “The First Fall Like Weather.” This article fit in with my Halloween ideas very well so if you like what I have to say you will like this.

The website is:
http://oldfashionhalloween.blogspot.com/

I was very excited that I saw a few posts about affordable Halloween decoration ideas such as something called “Vintage Bridge Tally Cards.” These are vintage Halloween collectables that can be found for less than $20 for a pair.

Another interesting tid-bit, if you live in Portland (the author of this blog is from there):
On of her posts says this information- ‘The 2009 Bazaar will happen on Saturday, October 3rd, 11am till 7pm at the Lloyd Center DoubleTree Exhibit Hall, Admittance is only $5 for those 10yrs+ and kids 10 and under are FREE! Halloween Costumes for all are greatly encouraged.” I really wish I was a local to be able to attend this, I would get decked out in a costume and hopefully see tons of new ideas I had never even thought of.

Hope you enjoy reading this blog….it has been around a lot longer than mine!

October is almost here,
Jennifer

My Website

Hello Blog Readers,

As I have stated in many previous blogs, Halloween can become an extremely expensive holiday. I was actually in one of those costume chains last weekend and could not find any costumes for less than $75.

So, incase you did not know I am actually the author of a Halloween website that promotes having an inexpensive yet fun Halloween. The reason I decided to make this website is because I felt that there was not a good resource for people without huge budget to have a great Halloween.

My Website is:
http://www.affordablehalloweenideas.webs.com/

If you are a college student this website is a great resource to check out because I myself absolutely love Halloween, but when it comes to coming up with a costume and throwing a great party I usually have a very little budget.

My website is not only for college students though. Anyone who wants cheap Halloween ideas can check it out, I just say college students because that is my position right now.

My website is quite new but as I progress in design I will be adding more costume ideas, recipes, decoration ideas, and many very many recommended resources to use.

So far my website shows you how to formulate a budget based on how much you would like to spend, and how to stretch that budget as far as humanly possible. The website also offers several Amazon ads for resources I recommend buying, and even an article about scary movies I think you should watch to get you in a spooky mood, scary movies that you may or may not to watch based on how much you tend to like gore, and ones not to even waste your time on because they are horrible.

Hope you check out my website and that it offers some new perspectives!

Jennifer

Jennifer's Body

Hello Scary movie watchers,

I know its only September but a scary movie came out this past Friday, so I figure I would give you an honest review.

Jennifer’s Body:
Directed by Karyn Kusama
Screenplay by Diablo Cody

Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Rated R for sexuality, bloody violence, language and brief drug use
Runtime- 102 minutes

Starring
Megan Fox- Jennifer Check
Amanda Seyfried- Needy Lesnicky

The movie starts out as a foreshadowing of what is to come. Needy is in a mental institution and looking quite attractive. It then flashes back to explain how they came to this point. (I do not want to give all the movie away incase you plan to see it) Jennifer ends up becoming possessed by an evil spirit and has to feed on human insides and blood. Needy finds out what is going on and tries to fight Jennifer.

That was just a tiny snip-it of some main points of the movie.

It was so bad. Probably the worst scary movie I have seen since The Village. It almost felt like the whole movie was supposed to be a spoof on itself. I would not recommend going to see it because the whole reason most people are getting sucked in is for Megan Fox. Yes, every guy at my college that was in that theatre freaked out when the two main actresses made-out. But really they do not explain why that happens, and it was totally out of place. As for this being classified as a scary movie. I was never actually scared, they just had a few unexpected loud noises that made me jump once or twice. The ending was totally random.

If you want a good scary movie I would say to skip this one because it will be a huge let down.

I would give it 1/4 of a star.

Thanks,
Jennifer

The History of Halloween

Hello Blog Followers,

In case you were wondering while you celebrate this amazing holiday known as Halloween I thought I would fill you in a bit. I did a little bit of surfing on the web and this is what I found from my favorite source, “Wikipedia.”

Some history:

Can you believe Halloween has origins in the ancient Celtic festival known as Samhain, from the Old Irish samain, possibly derived from Gaulish samonios? The festival of Samhain is a celebration of the end of the harvest season in Gaelic culture, and is sometimes regarded as the "Celtic New Year". Traditionally, the festival was a time used by the ancient Celtic pagans to take stock of supplies and slaughter livestock for winter stores. The ancient Celts believed that on October 31st, now known as Halloween, the boundary between the living and the deceased dissolved, and the dead become dangerous for the living by causing problems such as sickness or damaged crops. The festivals would frequently involve bonfires, into which the bones of slaughtered livestock were thrown. Costumes and masks being worn at Halloween goes back to the Celtic traditions of attempting to copy the evil spirits or placate them, in Scotland for instance where the dead were impersonated by young men with masked, veiled or blackened faces, dressed in white.

Origin of name:

The term Halloween, originally spelled Hallowe’en, is actually shortened from All Hallows’ Even ("All Hallows' Eve"). Eve is an abbreviation of even, an older word for evening. Halloween gets -een as a result of syncopation of even to e'en, from the Old English term eallra hālgena ǣfen meaning "all saints' evening", as it is the eve of "All Hallows’ Day", which is now also known as All Saints’ Day.

All the above information was obtained from:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween.

My teachers all hate this site, but I truly believe it is a great resource.
If you have any different information feel free to comment.

Jennifer

Dangers of Halloween

Hello,

Since this is a Halloween blog I figured I would give you readers some of my trick-or-treat safety ideas:

1. Stick to neighborhoods you know. Going to other areas just to get extra candy is not worth putting yourself in an area that you are not familiar with.
2. Check all candy before eating it. My mother and I always used to do this when I got home from a long day of trick-or-treating, and I was not allowed to eat any of my candy until we got home and it was checked.
3. This next tip is one you may never have thought of, but check the sex offenders’ registry for your area. You can go to your state’s list, type in your address and get a list and the addresses of their houses. I know when I was young my mother did this and she made sure to skip these houses.
4. If trick or treating at night make sure children have reflective tape on their costumes or are carrying a flashlight or glow stick in order to be more visible to cars.
5. Older children allowed to go by themselves should plan out routes they will be taking to trick-or-treat and should carry a watch to be home at a certain.
6. Younger children should be accompanied by adults at all times; younger children who are not accompanied by parents should be with older siblings.
7. Finally, children should be informed not to cut through alleys or people’s backyards. Also, they should stay in well lit and well populated areas.

I hope these tips help you warn your children about to have the most fun while being safe during this years Halloween. This tips should also help parents feel a little better about their children be out.

This website has some additional tips:
http://www.halloween-safety.com/halloween_safety_treats.html

Thanks
Jennifer

A Trick or Treat Story

Halloween Fanatics,

Today I have decided to share a little Halloween trick or treat story from my childhood.

There are not very many Halloween stories I can remember from when I was a kid. There are two main ones I can think of, one when I was a purple dinosaur (NOT BARNEY), and one when I was a spider. I actually hate spiders, and have a huge irrational fear of them but I was one for Halloween when I was about 8.

This was a Halloween where the weather happened to be horrible. It was pretty chilly and raining. I remember being super bummed because I of course wanted to go trick or treating and I did not think I would be able to. To describe my costume a little I wore a black leotard with black leggings underneath and then my spider legs attached to this big puffy black pillow-type thing on my back. The legs were attached to my arms to when my arms moved they moved as well.

My mom saved the day as she always did by having me get in her car and then she would pull up to a driveway and I would hop out trick-or-treat to that house and usually the one next door, and then run back to the car. I ended up with as much candy as I usually do for Halloween and it was great as it always was. I remember being one of the few trick-or-treaters so some house would just load me up with candy because they had so much and did not want a lot of leftovers. My mom was so great to do that for me.

I hope this story helps you think back to special Halloweens you have had, feel free to leave comments with stories of some you really enjoyed!

As Always,
Jennifer

Outdoor Fun

Welcome Back Readers,

Here are some things to do during Fall

Fall in my opinion has the best weather and some of the most fun outdoor things to do every year during the months of September, October, and November. Below I will discuss a few things my friends and I really like to do to get in the Holiday season each year.
1. Go apple picking: This is a great outdoor activity that involves a lot more than it seems. Most apple orchards you can go to will have the orchard, shops, petting zoos, and even a huge corn maze. My roommates and I go every year to pick apples, buy those homemade jams, and get lost in the corn maze (their maps tend to be horrible).
2. Go to an outdoor haunted house: If the weather permits at night check out an outdoor haunted house. The ones I have been to are a haunted trolley ride, and a haunted trail hike. They were so fun just remember these should be gone to when it’s really dark otherwise you can spoil most of the scary surprises.
3. Finally and most importantly go to a pumpkin patch: These usually contain all the same things as an apple orchard plus tons of pumpkins to choose from! This is a fun treat because after leaving the pumpkin patch you can go home and carve your pumpkins.
4. Fright Fest and Great America- Going here is a little more expensive but Six Flags has been offering plenty of coupons on tickets. Fright fest is an extremely entertaining and scary experience of roller coasters and many other rides.

Hopefully these few ideas will get you out of the house and outside into the beautiful cool fall weather. These ideas can be done with family, friends, and are even romantic date ideas.

Adios,

Jennifer

Scary Movies

Hello Halloween blog readers,

I like to consider myself a scary movie watching critic. I love being scared and scary movies are by far my favorite. Below I am going to give my favorites a shout out and strongly recommend you check these out during the wonderful Halloween season:

Ten Great Ones to check out:
1. What Lies Beneath- A great thriller and original storyline about a married couple that has several unexpected twists.
2. The Ring- This movie scared the crap out of me, had a GREAT storyline, and was the first of the Asia themed movies to hit the market.
3. Nightmare on Elm Street- A classic series of movies that scares you into not wanting to sleep for fear of what could happen.
4. The Exorcist- Another classic that really makes one question religion and other supernatural sources and what they could do to us.
5. Halloween- This is the classic psycho undead killer, and a pretty gory movie.
6. Psycho- This black and white classic was one of the first scary movies I have ever seen and still creeps my out even more.
7. Sleepy Hallow- Love Johnny Depp and this classic Halloween story.
8. Silence of the Lambs- This movie messes with your head and has such a unique storyline.
9. Dead Silent- This movie about dummies and is one of the scariest new movies I have seen in a long time.
10. Signs- One of two great M Night Shyamalan movies that keeps you on the edge of your seat wondering what is going to happen next in the invasion.

The movies listed above are not in any order they are just some of my favorites that were fresh in my mind. Hope these scare or entertain you!!!!

Happy Scary movie watching

Jennifer (future famous movie critic)