It’s difficult to watch an 80’s movie and stay silent. Between the plot holes, 30-something “teenage” actors, unsubtle dialogue and “creative” outfits, there’s a lot of fun opportunities to yell at your TV (or use air quotes in its general direction). I doubt anyone was listening all those times I said “someone needs to recreate that outfit”, but Found Item Clothing answered my plea anyway. They make recreations of shirts from “your favorite movies, TV shows and more”, including classics from Teen Wolf (my fave) and UHF. For a Halloweenie, this means that dressing like your favorite obscure 80’s movie character just got a lot easier. But wait, there’s more! Not only does FIC make the shirts, they offer 6 detailed tutorials on how to dress like characters from Real Genius, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, The Big Lebowski, Beverly Hills Cop, and Wet Hot American Summer. Nerds, rejoice!

Thankfully, there are other online resources that save you the trouble of playing the “pause, rewind, pause, screencap” game. If you’ve ever wanted to dress as Bill and Ted for Halloween, you’re in luck. BillandTed.org provides 3 very detailed tutorials on how to make Bill and Tedd costumes from both movies, as well as a fan costume gallery. The Wyld Stallyns shirt is also finally available!

Instructables has a thorough Ghostbusters tutorial and 80s Tees also has some interesting costume ideas. Notable among them are Screech, Al Bundy, and Beavis without a mask. About a jillion general 80’s costume ideas are available at In the 80s and Mable’s. If you just don’t have the time or inclination to go DIY this year, several readymade 80s costumes are available from Buy Costumes.

As always, you’ll probably find the most unique & genuinely vintage 80’s costumes on eBay.

If you have made an 80’s movie character costume or know of a good tutorial online, please let us know in the comments.

And because 80’s Tees has so many funny designs, it would pretty much be criminal if we didn’t show a few more of them. The “costume” shirts remind me of those plastic smock costumes from the 70s/80s… in the best way. Enjoy the flashback!

Looking for more original horror t-shirts to add to your collection? Fright-Rags has a good selection of well designed horror shirts of your favorite cult classics, creature features and slasher movies. These shirts are exclusive to Fright-Rags so you can’t get them anywhere else.

Being a huge zombie fan, I was initially drawn to the Obey (zombies make great social commentary) and Johnny shirt that says the classic line “They’re coming to get you Barbara!” Oh how right Johnny was. I also admire the simplicity of design on everyone’s cult favorite Ash (from Evil Dead), and Frankenstein.

I’m also really liking the Trick or Treat design based on looks alone. I have to admit I didn’t even know what movie it was from until I looked it up. It’s from a 1986 flick entitled Trick or Treat, that is “meant to be a parody of teen-horror-devil-worship movies”. The looks of this shirt, the rock and roll star cameos, the user comments, and description of the movie all tell me I’ve got to rent this soon.

Also worth checking out: Your Zombie Cafe Press store. Tons of Shaun of the Dead designs, and other zombie related shirts.

There’s only 2 little weeks left until Halloween, but that’s still plenty of time to transform your home into a trick-or-treater’s best nightmare. Take these DIY wreaths, for example. While the wreath is typically used around Christmas time, this makes it perfect to transform for ghastly Halloween usage. People expect traditional pine boughs and red ribbon when they think of wreaths, and you can catch them off guard with spooky adaptations that include monster fur and fake gore. It is the ability to change the mundane into the macabre that has made Halloween so popular.

Both of these projects are incredibly simple, and don’t require sewing. Just a quick trip to your local Halloween store or Joann’s, and about an hour of construction and you’ll have a Halloween wreath that’s far creepier than anything available at the stores. There’s also a tutorial for a Trinket Wreath at Craft Bits that’s as easy as plugging in a glue gun. For more inspiration, there are some unique Halloween wreath images on Google, as well as some creative takes on the Monster Wreath on Flickr.

Have you made a Halloween wreath or found a good tutorial online? Please share the details using the comment form below.

If you haven’t already, it’s time to start carving pumpkins. If you’ve already carved one up, it’s time to get a new one because it’s probably not as good as a Zombie Pumpkin. Each stencil is hand drawn and stylized by Ryan, the one man show, to work perfectly with traditional cut-out carving techniques. You don’t need to be a master carver for these stencils to come out looking good. But I’ll stop gushing over how awesome they are and let you get to choosing. The site’s been recently updated for the 2006 season with a new design and new stencils. Some of the newest are Stubbs the Zombie (personal fav), Head Cheerleader, Gizmo (from the 80’s flick Gremlins), and in honor of Friday the 13th, Jason Voorhees.

Don’t forget that the stencils can be used for other things besides pumpkin carving. We used the Pumpkin King stencil to decorate our pumpkin cake, and there are stencils made just for watermelons.

One of Zombie Pumpkins’ freebie stencils (and one of the coolest ones, IMO) was created from imagery on a bottle of Haunted Hot Sauce. They cleverly combine flesh-eating zombies with spicy food products to create a zombie themed hot sauce. It is also worth mentioning that HHS has a great website that doesn’t just sell zombie hot sauce in little cedar coffins. They’ve got some great tips and tricks for decor and props. Our top picks are the 13 Top Tips for creating a Halloween atmosphere, and how to “board up” your windows (we’d love to see more pictures of this one).

Happy Friday the 13th!

Every year, usually between gooey mouthfuls of sweets, I find myself lamenting that the concept of putting “Halloween” and “healthy” together doesn’t seem to garnish enough interest. The most popular focus of Halloween definitely seems to be the spooky factor, and yet sugar finds its way into everything. For example, take even a quick look at Halloween recipes available (online or in magazines/books), and you will find all manner of creepy looking creations; witch’s fingers, worm-ridden dirt cups, bleeding Jello hearts, kitty litter cakes, etc. (Many of those “recipes” are nothing more than covering a pre-prepared sweet with pre-prepared frosting or meltable chocolate, but I’ll save that topic for another post.) Finding one of those recipes that isn’t made of 90% junk ingredients is a lot more difficult. People want to have their freaky Halloween foods, but the resources to help us make those recipes a bit more healthy can be difficult to find. We all want to eat and feel better, but don’t want to compromise very much on taste. As the owner of a sweet tooth (or rather, a whole mouthful of them), I totally relate.

Hopefully this list will help get you thinking outside the box and inspire some new Halloween recipes that are creepy, delicious, and healthy. These include whole foods, which are naturally colored in vibrant Halloween shades and contain long lists of essential nutrients. To preserve the most color, nutrition, and flavor, try to keep cooking to a minimum. If you can’t serve an item raw, just lightly steam or bake it.

• BLACK: poppy seeds, raisins, currents, black beans, cocoa, carob
• PURPLE: blueberries, purple cabbages, blackberries, eggplant/plum (skin only)
• GREEN: leafy greens, broccoli, kiwis, peas, green beans, avocados, celery, green onions, herbs, green apples (skin only)
• ORANGE: pumpkin and other winter squash, oranges, carrots, cantaloupes, persimmons, orange bell peppers, yams
• RED: beets, strawberries, cherries, raspberries, red bell peppers, cranberries, tomatoes, pomegranates, red onions, red delicious apples (skin only)
• YELLOW: pineapples, bananas, corn, yellow bell peppers
• WHITE: coconuts, potatoes, sweet potatoes, lychees, dragonfruit (some varieties)

When baking, try alternative sweeteners to white sugar. This will help you reduce the Glycemic Index, calories, and the “sugar high” that ends in a blood sugar crash (which contributes to fatigue and over-eating, among other things). I prefer fructose, as you don’t need to change up a recipe too much to substitute it in there, and it behaves very much like sugar.

To Replace 1 cup White Sugar:

• Fructose = 2/3 cup (reduce other liquids by 1/8 cup)
• Agave Nectar = 3/4 cup (reduce other liquids by 1/3 cup)
• Barley Malt = 1 1/2 cups (reduce other liquids by 1/4 cup)
• Brown Rice Syrup = 1 1/3 cup (reduce other liquids by 1/4 cup and add 1/4 tsp. baking soda)
• Molasses 1 1/3 cup (reduce other liquids by 1/4 cup and add 1/2 tsp. baking soda)
• Fruit Juice Concentrate = 1 1/2 cups (reduce other liquids by 1/4 cup)
• Xylitol = 1 cup (not for use with yeasted recipes like bread or rolls)
• Maple Syrup = 3/4 cup (reduce other liquids by 1/8 cup)

Another easy way to add some nutrition to a baked recipe is to use flours other than white wheat. I almost always use a 50/50 mix of spelt flour and whole wheat flour, and the taste and performance is almost totally unnoticeable. There are many other kinds of non-wheat flours available as well.

Here are a few more general tips that can help you eat and feel better this season:

• Get really creative and make your own recipes using the lists above as inspiration. Aim for lots of colors and textures, and try new ingredients, and you’ll never be bored with healthy eating.
• Create homemade meals and treats whenever possible. Pre-packaged and fast food is loaded with sugar, chemicals, trans-fats, sodium, artificial colors & flavorings, etc.
• Eat healthy foods first and save treats for dessert time. If you fill up on real food, you will be less likely to over indulge on junk food.
• Drink plenty of water. We often mistake thirst for hunger (especially when eating too much sugar), which causes us to over eat.
• Use frozen vegetables instead of canned to cut sodium and increase flavor and nutrition.
• Eat lots of raw fruits and veggies! You will get load of enzymes that aid in digestion, detoxing, and repairing your body. To avoid a tummy ache, eat fruit by itself, preferably on an empty stomach.
• Avoid all artificial chemical sweeteners, all of which fall into 2 categories: either we don’t have nearly enough long term information on it, or it has been documented by the FDA to promote numerous health problems. Your health is too precious to risk on a product that might be deadly, and there are excellent alternatives, like Stevia.

What are your favorite healthy Halloween recipes and tips? Please leave your suggestions in the comments!

Costumes with “crazy” in their name are perfect for Halloween. The outfit is often an eye-catching hodgepodge of items, and you have a perfect excuse to act ig’nant all night long. The Crazy Cat Lady is no exception. The outfit is totally open to interpretation so you can wear any wonky old clothing of your choosing. Layers, anything extremely retro, brightly colored, mismatched, or a bit tattered and/or stained is perfect. Accessories like big hats, big purses (for toting more cats), long scarves, garish and smeared makeup, and hair curlers will show everyone that you are indeed more concerned with herding all your pretty kitties than with looking in a mirror or knowing what month it is. Because of the anything-goes nature of this outfit, it’s fast and easy to create, and makes a creative last minute costume idea.

The Crazy Cat Lady costume offers some extra flexibility, too. Maybe you don’t exactly want to focus on the crazy part, and want to instead just show your greater-than-average love of cats. Here’s a garden variety Crazy Cat Lady that’s just crazy for cats, not loco crazy. Just find any item of clothing with a cat print or a picture of a cat on it and build from there. No matter which version you opt for, be sure to attach several stuffed cats to your outfit, in your hair, and in your purse. If you’ve got kids or are a Crazy Cat Lady in real life, you should have these lying around.

Did you find this Halloween tutorial useful? If you’ve made your own version of this costume, we would love to see pictures! If your pics are already online, post a link in the comments below, or send us an e-mail so others can be inspired as well.