Five must see Halloween Films

Halloween is a time filled with laughter, joy and trick or treating. With that in mind, sometimes it is nice as a single person or a family to stay in and have a movie night. Popular Halloween films, both classic and new, can be viewed during Halloween or at any time of the year. These five films can be found online, at a local movie shop, or available through iTunes.



*The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!*

This Halloween classic involves Peanuts favorites, Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy and Sally. In this tale Linus searches for The Great Pumpkin, and hopes to prove to the other kids that he does exist. Meanwhile Charlie Brown is invited off to a Halloween party by a friend, Peppermint Patty.

“It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!” was debuted in 1966 written by Charles M. Schulz. It is a short film of about 25 minutes that the whole family will enjoy. Truly a classic, this TV film short, is a surefire hit for any Halloween movie night.

Celebrate Saint Patrick's Day With Food & Fun

 

How to Make Holiday Season Great on a Budget

Holidays are filled with fun, laughter and plenty of festivities that can feel overwhelming with the economic times as they are. Many families are having to live off a budget and need to save as much money as they can. This might make it seem as if families will not be able to have the glimmering looks of Christmas, as well as the comfort of having wonderful food and many presents under the tree.

Below is a list of easy money saving tips for holidays that will help the entire family enjoy Christmas this year, and for the many years to come while on a budget.

• Exchange gifts.  This will keep the budget from being overspent and it will keep everyone still getting something on Christmas day. If there is something a child wants that might cost $50 or more, try purchasing smaller gifts instead. These gifts can be things such as gift cards, books, or even a new addition to a toy someone wants.

Five Valentine's Crafts for Kids

With Valentine's Day right around the corner, it's time to get love out there and give it to somebody special. Valentine's Day isn't just for couples, it's for kids too. Often kids have fun making crafts for their loved ones at school, but why not bring crafting home? Included below are five fun crafts for kids for Valentine's Day.

Disclaimer: All directions can be found on their original websites.


1. Paper Plate Dinosaurs

2. Recycled Crayon Hearts

Easy Ways to Celebrate New Years Eve

Looking for ways to celebrate the new years' eve? Look no further! Located below you'll be able to find easy ways to celebrate new years eve. It's crazy to think that the new year is upon us already, but here it comes and it's only a few days away. Have you even started planning what you're going to do when every one comes? Consider some of the following before you start to panic.

10 Easy Halloween Decoration Ideas

Halloween... I mean fall, is here and it's all about getting the house decorated in time. With these 10 easy halloween decorations everyone can get prepared for the ghoolish time of year. Personally, I love the glow in the dark pumpkins and the spooky eyeball wreath. I might use those myself and deck out my own house. 

What are your favorite ways to get ready for All Hallows Eve? Here you can find more ways to get ready to show your spirit.

 10 Ways to Decorate this Halloween

 

Egg Carton Bats

 

Concrete Pumpkins

 Halloween Mummy Door

  5. Spooky eye wreath

6. Bloody Hand Clings

7. Glow in the dark Pumpkin

8. Ghost Leaf Bags

9. DIY Lanterns

10. Bloody candles

Valentine's Day 2015

Just a quick update to say Happy Valentine's Day to my readers. 

I hope you get to spend as much time as you can with those that you love today. 

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

More posts on Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day Recipe Ideas

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again but Valentine’s Day is right around the corner. You’ve seen the stores, they’re filled with pink and red everything and all the cute stuffed animals. While that’s all fine and dandy, there is so much more to give for this day than the store bought gift. What’s a better way to give a gift than by giving the gift of delicious goodies.

I’ve searched online for many Valentine’s Day recipes and recipe ideas, but sometimes it can get overwhelming with all of the different sites. I’ve gathered a collection, in hopes to ease the search with my readers. I do plan to put this into a three part series, so be sure to subscribe (put your email in the space on the right sidebar) and you will automatically get updates to all of my blog posts. 

Stained Glass Valentine Cookies 

Don’t these look absolutely Delicious?

 

 

Valentine's Day Date Ideas on a Budget

Valentine's Day is upon us, and it is time to start planning ahead for the big day. While many like to celebrate the day by giving their significant other gifts, flowers, or chocolate, there are many other ways to celebrate the day, like a date night. Perhaps you would rather do both a gift and a date, and that’s alright too. Whichever is the case, the following are some easy Valentine’s Day date ideas on a budget, which anyone can appreciate.

Cooking is an easy and heartfelt way to celebrate the day with your loved one. It can be done any time in the day, and will be a special treat. If you cook at home, you can even make it a fun and playful encounter by throwing some ingredients at one another. After all, the day is about love and laughter. If cooking is not your forte, consider ordering in and plating it like a professional chef might. 

Five Gluten Free Valentine's Day Recipes

With Valentine's Day getting closer, that means it's time to get our baking on. While valentines cards might sound like a traditional Valentine's Day gift,  think inside the box and make your sweetie something tasty.

Now most the time people can have whatever they want for a sweet treat, but there are often allergies to things such as peanuts and gluten. The below recipes are specified to be completely gluten free and are not only fantastic, but look like they will be absolutely scrumptious treats!

What are you waiting for? Scroll down to find out more about these great gluten free Valentine's Day recipes.

Dark Goddess Cake

Where did the Halloween Costume Come From?

According to History.com the beginning of wearing costumes for Halloween can be dated back to the Celts. During the festival of Samhain it was believed that ghosts would return to earth. To celebrate the event the Druids built bonfires and burned crops and animals for sacrifice to the spirits. During their celebration they would wear costumes that were made from animal heads and skin. To avoid being recognized by their ghostly family members, these masks were often worn.

Later on in history rather than dressing in animal skins and heads, the Christians decided to honor the dead and wear costumes such as angels, saints and devils. While its timing varied from culture to culture, it also varied by name. In time the All Saints Day celebration become known as All Hallows Eve and later on Halloween.

When Halloween came to Maryland and the other colonies, the diverse beliefs from each ethnic group melded together forming what were referred to as play parties, where neighbors would share stories of the dead, dance and sing in celebration of the dead. In the 19th century new immigrants helped to make Halloween popular nationally. Originally more of a supernatural and superstitious celebration, the day became more a holiday for the colonies and states.

Through the history that started the tradition, it has now grown to a cultural phenomenon. Though dressing up as witches, ghouls, angels and devils is still done today, now even more types of costumes have become popular. The costumes of clowns, angry birds, mermaids, mythological gods and goddesses, and pumpkins are also commonly worn. Or for the adults more risqué costumes such as bartenders, French maids, or flappers are available.

To add to the fun and tradition of dressing up for Halloween there are often events such as costume contests hosted by night clubs, casinos or radio stations.  In some cases school activities or church events offer costume contests as well.

As each generation continues on, the spirit of Halloween and dressing up in costumes goes on and grows. While nowadays children and adults dress up in costumes for fun and not to avoid evil spirits the generations continue to have fun with it and show off their creativity and culture. For this year and every year on, pop culture icons such as Freddy Kruger, Michael Myers, and the Scream mask will live on as well.

Costumes at one point in history were meant to keep the spirits away, but now it is all about having fun, trick or treating, and having a good time with friends and family alike. No matter what the costume is during the season, Halloween is a great season and dressing up can be fun. Happy Halloween.

How to have a Stress Free Christmas

Christmas time is full of gift wrapping, the exchange of gifts and holiday spirit. While this is true, sometimes stress can come with the holiday and people can forget that there are ways to avoid this from happening. Stress doesn’t have to take over your life during the Christmas season; it can be pushed aside and avoided with a few tips.

Whip out the coupons before buying Christmas presents for friends and family. With the wide array of sales that is almost always going on during the season coupons are often in newspapers, weekly advertisements and of course found on the internet. Whether it is buying the items for presents or for things such as baking necessities, coupons.com can be a great place to pick up printable coupons online.

Another tip to avoid holiday stress is to print your own address labels. These labels can be made up on an excel worksheet, or word document. By creating your labels this way and saving them on to the computer you have them to access at any time of the year. Pick label sheets up from an office department store such as Staples to make sure you have the correct sized labels needed for your printer.

Printing labels out this way will help create less stress for Christmas presents to be sent out via mail, as well as not having to hand write addresses on Christmas cards to be sent.

Wrap the presents purchased the same day they are bought to avoid holding off until the last minute to wrap Christmas presents. This will help keep the gifts organized and wrapped so they are ready to be put underneath the tree. If the gift is for a secret Santa or a gift exchange, this is also a wonderful way to avoid stress for those types of events.

Have emergency gifts for extra guests such as boxes of chocolate. There can be unexpected guests at Christmas dinners and parties sometimes, or someone may have forgotten to bring a gift for the exchange. If you find this is the case something as kind and delicious as a box of chocolates can work perfectly. It is something that people can enjoy, eat, and not feel guilty about taking as it was a gift.
The

How to Decorate Dorm Rooms for Valentines Day

Decorating a college dorm room that is appealing to everyone might sound like a challenge to some, but with this how to guide on decorating a dorm for Valentine’s Day, it will come with ease and seem like it took no effort at all.

*Take Inventory*
Look at what you already have in the room or in your closet for possible valentine’s decorations. You might find that you have a teddy bear with hearts, or some left over red streamers from a party you hosted for Christmas left over. These are perfect items to use around the wall to decorate. Streamers can be used to drape from the ceiling in a pattern. This can add a fun effect to the roof of the dorm room. Of course if you have a tall roommate it might be better to make these streamers hang close to the ceiling.

*Dollar stores*
The Dollar Tree and other dollar stores may have a variety of different Valentines decorations to be purchased for a low price of one dollar. Usually the dollar tree has wall stickers that have hearts, and love sayings or quotes on them. These are often found in the home accessories aisle. Also a common decoration there for Valentine’s Day are window clings. These are often using characters from Winnie the pooh and other cartoon characters like Mickey and Minnie mouse with hearts and love sayings too. These are fun things that can be used for the walls and the windows for decorating the dorm room this Valentine’s day.

*Decorative Pillows*
This is something that can be done with ease for Valentine’s Day. Not only is it common that there are a variety of heart shaped pillows but often red and pink matching set throw pillows can be found. Valentine’s Day decorations do not need to be limited to the windows, ceilings and walls anymore. Decorate your dorm room with colors of red, pink and lilac to add a beautiful array of color for this Valentine’s Day.

*Valentine’s Day cards*
Another way to decorate the dorm room for Valentine’s Day is by cutting out old Valentine’s Day cards and putting them together in a photo album on the coffee table. Another option is to take the old valentine’s day cards and put them around on the desk and tape them to the back of the door with double sided tape to make a photo collage.

If you are still completely confused on how exactly to throw it all together, ask your roommate for their ideas, or find more here from Linda Ann Nickerson and Krystie Bohmer here.

Easy Ways to Get In Halloween Spirit

Halloween is a spooky, eerie, and magnificent holiday for many. For some it is all about the candy, for others it is a time to let the creative dark side come out and play. Throughout the months before October and often the month of, people will begin preparing for their favorite ‘holiday’ Halloween. This is a day that many look forward to, but for those homes which get over a thousand kids, it might be a day of dread. Whichever side of the scale you may be, there are plenty of ways to decorate for Halloween without spending a ton of money.  Saving money is something, let’s be real, we can all agree on. Who doesn’t love saving money? 

PUMPKINS

Carving pumpkins isn’t the only way to make a fun impression on guests and trick or treaters this year. Of course the traditional carved pumpkin is a classic and will show guests your home is ready for Halloween, you might want to try some new suggestions this year. Have some fun with three things you probably already have around the house. Create a line of ghosts for around the house, (or driveway) to line a path of spooky ghosts. These ghosts are not anything hard to make, even the kids can make these guys. With three around the house items as simple as black paint, milk jugs, and Christmas string lights (white or colored) these little guys can be a blast to create. Simply create the face you want on the outside of milk jug, allow to dry. Cut a small hole in back of jug to allow a few lights to be gathered inside. Place ghosts as close or far apart as desired.

FOOD

There are many different foods that could be made during this time of the year. Some simple was are by creating festive foods. These food examples could be as simple as a bunch of decorative cookies. There are a ton of recipes via Pinterest for Halloween cookies too that can be made.   

One fun way to use a pumpkin is by hollowing it out and using it for hot mulled cider, or a dip bowl. 

Decorations

So you want to put up decorations but don't want to spend a lot of money? No problem, check out your local Dollar Tree or dollar store for some fun and cheap Halloween decorations. If you still want to be more on the creative side, you can also follow some easy DIY project ideas. These can be fun because they are for any part of the house.

Halloween is probably my favorite holiday. I love it because it's full of fright, terror, and all things that go bump in the night. Not only that but it's got the best color combination anyone could ask for. Orange and black.

I'm really hoping this year I can get some trick or treaters. I think I am going to since I have a porch light and there are a lot of kids in my neighborhood. If I'm not working that day I'm going to be passing out candy as much as I can and as long as I can. I love seeing the kids in their costumes and how creative some of them are. My favorite are the home made ones or the odd character ones.

What is your favorite part about Halloween? How do you like to decorate?