TV Themed Halloween Costumes For This Year's Fun

Are you stuck for ideas for Halloween costumes this year? A bit sick of the usual vampires and spooks that are offered as Halloween costumes? I don't blame you. There comes a time when you want something different to dress as when having Halloween fun at parties, at home or at club events. How about dressing up as a character from a TV show?

Halloween costumes based on TV shows are a great way to have fun at Halloween and bring some great originality to the events that you are attending. Let's face it, Halloween parties always go better when the costumes worn by people there are creative, imaginative and that look superb. TV costumes are a brilliant way to make an impact at Halloween this year!

There are some superb TV shows that you can dress as characters from. The beauty of TV themed costumes is you're not limited to just the main character- you can choose anyone! Just make sure that the TV themed Halloween costume that you choose is easily recognizable by as many people as possible, so don't go too obscure!

Think about the possibilities. How about a character from the legendary Star Trek universe? How about The Doctor, or any of the other famous characters from Doctor Who or Torchwood? What about Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Angel, True Blood, The Sopranos, Big Bang Theory, LOST, Heroes or any of the other hit shows that are keeping people glued to their TVs all over the world?

Many of the best TV themed Halloween costumes are easy to find at your local party supplier or costume shop, and an even larger range is available on the internet. Have a look around at the Halloween sites and retailers online and you'll discover a huge number of TV themed Halloween costumes to choose from.

How about dressing up as characters from fun shows like Spongebob Squarepants? The options are limitless. You could even dress up as a kids TV character - how about Power Rangers Halloween costumes? Plus, if you get a basic costume from a retailer online or in a store, you can further improve your costume with accessories you make yourself or items that you already have at your disposal! Have fun and Happy Halloween!

Andrew is a music and pop culture journalist and SF author. Want more great Halloween costume ideas? How about Batman and Joker Dark Knight Costumes for Halloween this year? There are many more to choose from!

Expensive Halloween Costumes - Are They Worth It?

We are only a couple of weeks away from Halloween now and the panic to be the "best dressed" is on. One way of ensuring an impressive costume is to look for expensive Halloween costumes, this at least will set you apart from the people wearing their fifty buck outfits and ensure you get all the attention you want.

Of course in this current economic downturn not everyone will be able to fork out hundreds of dollars on expensive halloween costumes but for those that are in a position to do so, the rewards become even bigger because there is even less chance that someone will have the same costume as you.

So where can you find these exclusive Halloween costumes? You could simply go to the normal costume stores either online or locally and search by price or you can actually save yourselves some time and effort by searching for specific sites that deal with unique costumes.

Just go to the Google search page and type "Expensive Halloween Costumes" or "Unique Halloween Costumes". You will see tons of results but just narrow it down by looking at the web address and choosing sites that specifically target these type of Halloween costume.

Two years ago my boyfriend bought a truly amazing Dark Knight Costume and he was definitely the most impressive looking male costume i saw that Halloween and not just because I am biased! He is wearing it again this year as we are in a different city so although it did cost a couple of hundred bucks it is not a one off use.

Now many of you may say that buying an expensive halloween costume goes against the whole spirit of Halloween and that you should make your own. Unfortunately not everyone has the "talents" required for this and more importantly the time. So if you are interested in seeing some truly amazing costumes then take a look at the links in my resource box below.

If you want to stand out from the crowd this Halloween then check out this great Expensive Halloween Costumes full of unique Halloween costumes or this other great Expensive costumes site.

Men's Fancy Dress - 3 Awesome Examples of Halloween Costumes For Men

Men's fancy dress costumes come in so many styles and genre that it can be quite a chore searching for and deciding on an outfit that is best for you. Halloween costumes for men can either fall in the traditional scary category of outfit, such as zombies, skeletons, vampires, etc., or those type of generic costumes that you will be able to wear at fancy dress parties all year round.

Whatever type of men's fancy dress outfit you decide upon for Halloween, there are actually specialist websites online that specialise in Halloween costumes for men to help take the headache out of the abundance of choice that is out there.

To help you further, I have selected three genres of Halloween costumes for men that you may want to consider for this year's party, together with an actual example of a men's fancy dress costume for each genre.

Idea One: Traditional Mens Halloween Costumes

The traditional mens Halloween costume is the type of scary outfit that guys have always worn to the Halloween parties or to take the kids Trick or Treating. They are the Frankenstein outfits, the Dracula costumes, and more recently the Lord Voldemort outfits and the Joker costume from the Batman films. A great example of an outfit in this genre is the zombie doctor type of costume, which is based around a set of green surgical scrubs, with decaying body parts poking out of the chest and the knee, together with a terrifying looking zombie mask.

Idea Two: Generic Mens Halloween Costumes

The generic mens Halloween costume has become more and more popular in recent years, taking over from the scary type of outfits. These type of outfits can be worn more than once a year and so offer much better value for money. These costumes cover just about every genre out there, but the mens pirate fancy dress outfits are perhaps the most well-known. The mens pirate fancy dress costume became incredibly popular following the success of the Pirates Of The Caribbean trilogy of films and are usually based around a brown jacket and matching trousers, a white frilly shirt, black boot covers, a belt and of course a pirate's hat.

Idea Three: Novelty Mens Halloween Costumes

If you are looking for a really original outfit then perhaps a novelty mens Halloween costume will be your best bet. These types of outfit can take all kinds of form, such as the classic emu type outfit with false legs, the EVA moulded costumes and of course the man dressing up as a woman type of outfit. However, the must have novelty mens Halloween outfit this year has got to be the men's morphsuit costume, which is basically an all-in-one body suit with attached head, feet and gloves, which is available in a range of different colours.

Where can you find mens fancy dress costumes like these?

Men's Fancy Dress Costumes features all of these Halloween costumes for men plus many, many more.

A Word Or Two About The Author

Dan Fresh is a lifelong fancy dress aficionado who regularly writes for the popular Fancy Dress UK website.

How-to: Craft DIY Wax Seals Using Crayons and Stamps

Our poor old crayons have a hard life with us. Just this week alone my daughters made recycled crayons in skull and LEGO silicone molds for a birthday gift, got out the power tools to experiment with drilling on some big crayons, and used up all the candles in the house making encaustic art with crayons.

As the three of us sat at our big living room table, the kiddos melting crayons all over artist’s canvas, me working on an altered book for an anniversary present for my husband, I took a second look at their pools of molten wax and my little clay stamps, and all of a sudden I had another recycled embellishment for my book.

Whether you’d like to use a wax seal on a letter, a gift, or your own altered art, this candle + stamp method is just as quick and easy as using traditional sealing wax supplies–and it’s cheaper!

If you’ve ever used my encaustic crayon art tutorial, the beginning of this project will look familiar. Take an unbroken crayon (it’s longer, so that your fingers can grip it better away from the flame), remove the wrapper using an X-acto knife to slice the paper, and light a candle.

Hold the flame to the tip of the crayon just above the point where you’d like your wax seal, and allow several drops of melted crayon to puddle on that spot.

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Cool Halloween Costume Ideas For Going Out

Whenever October rolls around, the hunt for the best Halloween costume ideas starts among every individual who desire to participate in the festivities. Of course, the main aim is to look your best in whatever costume chosen, be it as a scary creature of the underworld, a sexy vampire, or a sassy princess in full regalia.

Here are a few of the most fashionable ideas for costumes during the Halloween season. These ideas can be altered to fit the wearer's age, style and preference. For example, the superhero costumes can be made sexier to fit the adult female while the kids can have loose-fitting costumes to allow for greater physical movement.

Mademoiselle Butterfly

Butterflies have always been excellent Halloween costume ideas mainly because the wings can be personalized in terms of size, shape and colors. You may find yourself meeting others wearing butterfly costumes but you can always do something to make your costume stand out. For example, instead of the just the wings in glitters, sequins and sparkles, your dress can also be outfitted with the same materials for a unified butterfly look.

Superhero Costumes

Anybody can be a superhero during Halloween. Kids can be any superhero they want to be including Spider-Man, Batman and Superman for the boys and Wonder Woman, Super Girl and Liberty Bell. Search the Internet and the comic books for inspiration as to the superheroes that your kids can become for a day.

Space Invader

Yet another popular Halloween costume idea is the space invaders, extra terrestrials and aliens. You can let your imagination run wild with the ideas for the costumes with accessories like laser guns, outlandish headgear and extra arms and legs. Most online sites selling Halloween costumes offer these alien outfits that you may then alter to suit your idea of a scary space invader.

Magician Costume

Now you see him, now you don't. This is the idea behind the magician's costume with the long cape to cover up the face and body when desired. The costume can even be recycled for a Dracula costume next year. For example, the cape and suit can still be the costume but your child can have Dracula's makeup and he can put on a set of fangs.

Prince and Princess

In any list of Halloween costume ideas, the prince and princess outfits for the little boys and girls in the family are almost always included and for good reasons, too. Halloween is not just about being scary to others but it is also about make-believe and being a prince and princess in America is definitely a fairy tale.

The great thing about prince and princess costumes is the wide variety of choices available. Little girls can wear gowns in various designs along with tiaras, scepters and other accessories fit for princesses while little boys have bright buttons, rickrack and even swords to make them look like true princes.

Other Halloween costume ideas include little lambs, spring chickens, vampires, werewolves and witches. Your choices are virtually limitless and that's what makes Halloween such a fun tradition in our part of the world.

Finding creative ideas for Halloween, homemade costumes, makeup, party decorations, games and crafts by going to this Halloween costume ideas website at HalloweenForAll.com.

Review: The DIY Chewing Gum Kit from Glee Gum, and a Cautionary Tale (Involving Second-Degree Burns)

As a dedicated D.I.Y.er, I’ve successfully brainwashed my children to the point at which, when my five-year-old wanted to try out chewing gum for the first time, her question to me was not “Will you buy me some gum?”, but, “Can we make some gum?”

Hmmmn…could we make some gum? Turns out we could! I purchased the Make Your Own Chewing Gum kit from Glee Gum, and within hours after its arrival, we were chewing away. It turns out that DIY chewing gum can be a surprisingly eco-friendly project (hint–it’s the chicle), but be warned: in the process of making this chewing gum, I got a really, really, REALLY bad DIY chewing gum-making injury.

Commercial chewing gums generally contain a lot of unhealthy ingredients, and some may be 100% non-natural, but gum, REAL gum, has chicle as its primary ingredient.

Chicle is the boiled-down sap of the sapodilla tree, which resides in Central American rainforests. Chicle is sustainably harvested by tapping the tree throughout its lifespan, wherever it lives in the rainforest. The entire process is done by cooperatives of workers–these chicleros are making a living from the rainforest without decimating it.

Whenever you buy commercially-produced chewing gum that contains chicle, whatever other freaky ingredients it contains, you’re at least supporting real workers doing eco-friendly work in a commercially-viable and intact rainforest. However, if you make your own chewing gum–which is shockingly simple!–you’ll be doing that AND controlling the ingredients.

The DIY Chewing Gum Kit comes with all the ingredients required to make chewing gum–chicle, corn syrup, flavoring, and confectioner’s sugar–as well as the instructions and a plastic tray for heating the chicle (more on that plastic tray later). But if you instead purchase the Chewing Gum Refill Kit, which we did, you’ll still get the instructions, the plastic tray, and the chicle, but you can substitute your own kitchen ingredients. For instance, we used organic confectioner’s sugar in our gum, and although we did use corn syrup and Kool-aid in our first batch, for the next batch we’re trying out brown rice syrup and herbal flavorings.

The instructions are simple: heat the chicle, knead it with the ingredients, and chew! The instructions warn that the chicle is very sticky when it’s gooey, which is why the kit provided us with a microwaveable tray. I don’t usually use the microwave to heat plastic, and my instinct was to grab a thrifted china bowl that I could re-purpose if I couldn’t clean it, but after many years of kitchen disasters, I now try to follow a recipe to the letter at least the first time that I make it.

However, as we were kneading the corn syrup and sugar into the chicle at the pace of two small children, it cooled down and got stiff again, so stiff that we could no longer knead it. The instructions didn’t mention this, but I figured that I could probably just pop it back into the tray and microwave it a little more to soften it again.

And that’s how we came to the point at which, as I was carrying the freshly-microwaved plastic tray of my chicle, corn syurp, and sugar mixture across the kitchen back to the table where my children waited, the plastic tray’s bottom melted away and and entire batch of molten sugar, syrup, and gum poured out and landed on my bare feet.

Just so you know, the instructions told me that the tray would melt if it got too hot, but not being a plastic-microwaver or a candy-maker, I didn’t realize that the tray could melt nearly a minute after being removed from the microwave, and I didn’t realize how hot sugar and syrup can be even if it doesn’t look that hot. Thanks to the second-degree burns on my feet (not to mention the fact of the chewing gum now fused to those burns)–yeah, I have one more reason not to microwave plastic now, and I may never get up the courage to make that popcorn ball recipe that I have pinned for next Halloween.

Fortunately, the batch that did not melt all over my feet was perfect: chewable, flavorful, definitely able to be modified to use better ingredients, and my empowered little children have a little more proof that they can make what they want instead of buying it.

So, words to the wise: absolutely make your own chewing gum, because it’s totally worth it if you don’t seriously injure yourself in the process, and to avoid seriously injuring yourself, dispose of that disposable plastic tray (paint palette? Seed starter?) and pick yourself up a beater china bowl from the thrift store.

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Old Frame + Scarf = A Masterpiece

A long time ago, I found this ugly picture frame at a garage sale for $3.00.

I used it for another project and spray painted it silver. Since then, though, I’ve changed things around and have had the frame in the back of my closet. Then, my amazing friend Erin went to Amsterdam and brought back a beautiful scarf for me. I can’t make myself wear it — not because I don’t love it, but I’m so afraid of ruining it. After seeing this project from House and Home that upcycles old handkerchiefs into wall art, I thought, “Hey… I could do that with my scarf and old frame!”

1. A picture frame. Look for ones at your local thrift store or at garage sales! There’s no reason to buy a new one when you can upcycle an old one!

2. Spray paint. You will only need spray paint if you decide to spray paint your frame. If you can, use a low VOC spray paint– it’s more eco-friendly!

3. Something to attach your scarf to your frame. I used tape, but you could use tacks or staples.

4. A beautiful scarf or handkerchief.

1. Spray paint your frame. This is how my frame looked after I spray painted it:

2. Once your frame is dry, turn it over. Attach your scarf to your frame. If there is an image on your scarf (mine had a peacock) make sure you center it within your frame. If you use a frame that still has the glass/backing with it, you can just insert it in like a normal picture. However, mine didn’t have that, so I taped it to the back of the frame. I taped it instead of stapling it because I didn’t want it to damage the scarf. Here is how I taped it:

I just taped my way around the frame, making sure that the scarf was pulled tightly on each side. (Side Note: make sure you get the wrinkles out of your scarf before you put it on your frame.)

3. Add a picture hanging mount to the back of frame, if you need one. Mine looks like this:

Find the middle of your frame, and then nail it onto the frame. Now it is ready to hang up! Here it is all finished:

I love how the silver sequins from the scarf match the silver frame! Do you have a favorite scarf or handkerchief that you could use as wall art? I would love to see it– share a picture of it on our facebook wall or share a link to it in the comment section below!

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