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.

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.

While visiting a Pumpkin Patch is usually available throughout Autumn, it makes a particularly fun event during the month of October to help get you into the spirit. Patches vary from region to region, but many of them offer events like costume contests, hay rides, face painting, small haunted houses, corn mazes, and more Fall fun. It’s also a nice opportunity to support local farmers and see a variety of pumpkins that you might not see at your local grocery store. Best of all, visiting pumpkin patches is free! At PumpkinPatchesandMore.org you can find listings for pumpkin patches (and related events) for all of the USA, as well as the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa. Local Harvest also offers a search that locates small farms, farmers markets, and other local food sources where pumpkins can be purchased. And you thought you’d be chilling at home this weekend.

Sean and I were lucky enough to find a local patch that had a great atmosphere and lots of activities, which we have been patronizing for 7 years now (Johnson Brothers at Goldenwest College in Huntington Beach, CA- check them out!). We don’t even have kids, but we find ourselves here every year among the families, fighting the leaf-filled punching bags, petting the farm animals, and perusing the pumpkins. I think it’s a good indicator that anyone can have fun at a pumpkin patch. Not to sound too sappy, but it’s also nice sometimes to find activities with a slower pace that just allow you to smell the crisp October air and hang out. And as any Halloweenie will tell you, it’s a lot funner than just picking up your Jack-o-Lantern to-be at the grocery store.

Other than the Attack
Alligator Prop that I mentioned a few days ago, a house full of haunted portraits are top on my list of Halloween props to get when I’m rich. Unlike the alligator, lenticular portraits don’t go for obvious shock, but instead create an eerie mood. Guests in your haunted home will have time to look at the pictures from a distance and perhaps shiver a bit when they realize they are surrounded by creepy old paintings. As they begin to approach, a distinct change occurs within the frame, and the eerie mood culminates with a shock as your visitors realise there is more to the portrait than they first assumed. It’s a more sophisticated way to scare people than just using gore, as it takes time to absorb the full scene, which totally messes with their minds.

There are a few artists creating image-changing haunted portraits, but since I know I’m not the only one on a budget, I’ll begin with the most affordable of the lot. Morbid Industries makes a long line of creepy pictures, suitably called Gortraits (shown at left). Their “after” images are the most graphic so if you’re looking for the biggest shock factor, these are the portraits you want. These are set apart from the competition in that they are the only portraits to include a frame, and these frames are actually really cool. They are ornate and often in very unique shapes that add a lot to the portrait, even though the quality is in line with the price point. Both SpiritHalloween.com and BuyCostumes.com sell them for about $17-$30 depending on print size, but their selections are different so check out both stores for a full selection.

Eddie Allen‘s work was the first set of haunted portraits I had seen in person. (There are many of his pictures shown at the Bay Theatre in Seal Beach if you’re in So. Cal.) His changing portraits are perhaps the most widely recognized of all artists, and in my opinion, the funnest. His choice of changes often include wiley eyes, and funny (yet horrible) facial expressions. There are some limited edition prints, including Terrible Timmy, the evil clown. His smallest prints are 5″x7″ for $15, and the largest 16″x20″ prints costs $100. Eddie sells directly through his website, which is the best deal, but you can also purchase from Gorey Details.

Like Eddie, Norm Lanier is also from southern California and has a penchant for Disney’s Haunted Mansion. In addition to offering free blueprints of the Mansion for download, he has also created a portrait called The Phantom Ship, which was inspired by the ride. His work is the most varied with images that are subtle or graphic, horrifying or silly. Norm also takes commissions for custom Ghost Portraits where anyone can pop in and out of a portrait just like a ghost. His smallest prints are 5″x7″ for $15, and the largest 18″x24″ prints costs $135, all available directly through his site.

Tim Turner also offers a “spooktacular selection of deliciously evil changing portraits” from his site The Ghoulish Gallery. They’re a little easier on the wallet, ranging from $50 to $75. I feel as though I’d be beating a dead horse if I mentioned where he was located or what Disney attraction also inspired him, so I’ll skip that part. Tim has worked in the entertainment industry for over 24 years making monsters so if there was a way to determine qualifications for making horror themed lenticular portraits, he would be considered “dang qualified.”

Or if you’ve got the time and inclination, you could always make your own haunted portrait. Just don’t get one of those pirate or witch portraits that are new this year and available at Target or Buy Costumes. I’ve seen them in person and they’re far more sad than scary. Patronize a real artist and purchase from one of the fine stores mentioned above.

As consumers, we have a lot to consider before making purchases; value, durability, style, environmental responsibility, and even the conditions under which the product was made. Some items are notorious for being manufactured using unfair labor practices, and unfortunately cocoa (the key ingredient in chocolate) is one of them. In 2001, the US was concerned with this subject when it was found that child slavery was involved in producing 43% of the world’s supply of cocoa! In response, Global Exchange says that, “…the US chocolate industry agreed (via the Harken-Engel Protocol) to voluntarily take steps to end child slavery on cocoa farms by July of 2005. Unfortunately, this deadline has now passed, and the chocolate industry has failed to comply with the terms of this agreement.” Nice. Is it just me, or does it seem a bit perverse that child slaves in Africa are making the chocolate that American kids are given to enjoy on Halloween?

So what can you do to help end child labor in the production of cocoa & chocolate? Simply spend your money with companies that adhere to Fair Trade practices. There are lots of retailers who produce Fair Trade chocolate, and there is even a Fair Trade Halloween kit available to take things a step further. In the kit there are (in addition to 42 delicious chocolates) 42 festive Halloween postcards to hand out that give knowledge about the importance of Fair Trade, all for just $15. (Spend $20 and you can enter coupon code ftm2006 to save 10%. Why not buy 2 or more kits to get this discount?) So you can still give out yummy chocolate candies, but toss an informative postcard into their candy sacks at the same time and you’ll help spread the word, too. Another alternative: give non-chocolate goodies on Halloween.

I haven’t sampled many of the brands that are available, but I love Lara Bars (their Maya line uses cocoa) and Dagoba, and have heard so many people rave about Green & Blacks and Endangered Species. What’s your favorite brand of Fair Trade chocolate?

Even though Halloween is expected to generate over $5 billion in sales this year*, you don’t need a ton of cash to transform your home into a haunted house. Sure, that $8,900 Attack Alligator prop would be amazing, but what really sets the mood is lighting. Every Halloween event, from home Halloween party to professional haunt, needs spooky lighting to create realism with mood. Fake cobwebs and dangling rubber bats look pretty lame in the light of day, but place them in a dark room with flickering candles or well placed spot lighting, and they create the foreboding atmosphere they were intended to. The best part is that great lighting can be achieved quickly, easily, and on the cheap.

Candles are an obvious first choice, and can be used in a lots of ways. For a dramatic, gothic feel, try a candelabra with tall tapered candles like the one featured above from Illuminations. Luminaries are a common Halloween lighting solution, and new styles are breathing life into this old idea. The owl is not a common symbol of Halloween, but this black Own Lantern uses unique cut-outs to create a slightly menacing look that is perfect for the season. Bats are much more commonly used, but there isn’t much diversity in their design usage. I like how this iron Bat Lantern can be hung upside-down, like a real bat, and has a stomach that resembles a furnace. (Maybe it’s just me, but those thick grates remind me of eerie basements and horror films.)

Real candles can be used in any of these items, but fake candles have a lot of upsides worth considering. For flammable items such as real pumpkins and paper bag luminaries, electronic candles are required to avoid a call to the fire department. Even in flame-safe environments, fake candles will eliminate soot, smoke, and all fire hazard. Some places restrict use of open flame, and kids+candles should never be left unattended, so LED candles make great choices for dorm dwellers and children.

More spooky lighting is available from Fright Catalog and BuyCostumes, and Yard Haunter has some good lighting tips to further inspire you.

*Article via Ghost Droppings