For the most unique and spectacular Halloween goodies you really can’t do better than handmade. The diversity, quality and imagination beats the pants off any of the mass produced Halloween items. Etsy – the epicenter of handmade items sold online – has put together a spooktacular Halloween gift guide that features quite an array of treats; costumes, decorations, jewelry and accessories, toys, cards, spooky art, and even food. Now you can support independent artisans while decking out your haunted mansion in style.

We’ve talked about October being Fair Trade month before, and this year we’ve unearthed a clever new way to integrate that into your Halloween celebrations: Reverse Trick-or-Treating! Showing that kids are capable of making immense change in our world, they will be handing adults a sample of Fair Trade chocolate. The tasty treats will be accompanied by a card that talks a bit about the child labor and poverty problems in the cocoa industry. The solution is deliciously simple: don’t cut cocoa out of your life, just swap the commercial stuff for Fair Trade chocolate. Thanks to some awesome Fair Trade companies, the chocolate and cards are FREE (you just pay for shipping). If you want to participate, just register by October 13, 2008. If your wee monsters will be out candy …

The contest is now over. A big thanks to everyone who entered, and congrats to Alyssa, Brandy, and Melissa Z.!

The fiendish folks at Halloween Party Store want you to have an awesome Halloween this year. That’s why they’re giving away 3 Halloween Costumes to 3 lucky readers! Here’s all you have to do to enter;

1) Visit Halloween Party Store and pick your favorite costume (up to $60)
2) Come back here and leave a comment with the name of the costume you chose and let us know why you like that costume so much. Is it the funniest, scariest or sexiest? Does it fit with your Halloween party theme this year or will you wear it to work?

The contest runs from September 29th – October 3rd, 2008 at midnight PST. 3 winners will …

Here’s a green Halloween craft project that’s simple, creative, and kid friendly. “Treat tubes” make a fun and DIY alternative to store bought treat sacks and can be used at Halloween parties or given to trick-or-treaters. They’re just big enough to fit things like fruit strips, candies, little toys, and mini Fair Trade chocolates. Plus, it’s a great way to use up all those TP tubes!

Just start with an empty toilet paper tube, fill it with small treats, wrap it in paper, twist and tie up the ends with ribbon, and add any sort of decoration you want to the outside. You probably already have all of the supplies needed such as glue, scissors, and of course toilet paper tubes. For embellishments you can buy store bought decor such as …

There’s always something new going on at Zombie Pumpkins. Proprietor, stencil illustrator, webmaster, and zombie-wrangler, Ryan, is a man of many talents and ideas. Not content to let his site rot like an old pumpkin, it receives a steady creative transfusion every Halloween season. So what’s new at the best pumpkin carving pattern site on the Internet?

Each year a new zombie-related theme for the website is chosen and for 2008 it’s “Night of the Zombie Pumpkins”. As always, there’s an amazing new site design to go with it. It’s seriously worth it to visit the entire site just to see how detailed and cohesive the design is.

Each year Zombie Pumpkins chooses a new charity to raise funds for. This Halloween your purchase of a “Monster All Access” membership will help …

With Halloween about a month away, seasonal chain stores are popping up everywhere. They’re definitely a fun experience, but feel a little sterile, a little canned. Don’t you wish a Mom and Pop Shop of Horrors would show up instead? That’s just how Los Angeles based The Mighty Squirm describe themselves and their online store of creepy t-shirts. Lovers of chilling design, Thea and Daniel create spooky detailed original illustrations and put them on high quality cotton shirts. Many of them glow in the dark and come on organic cotton, too! Their company is named in honor of their daughter and so there are plenty of creepy-cute kids shirts and placemates to choose from as well.

One aspect we really like is that all of their designs are free of text. As The Mighty …