Here are five ideas for costumes and at the end of this article are some home made make-up ideas. Now have fun and remember, Halloween is a time to eat, drink and be scary!

ROBOT COSTUME
Materials:
Duct Tape
Aluminum Disposable Pans
Grey Sweat Suit
Dryer Vent Tubing
Old Pair of Sneakers
Gallon Milk Jug (empty)
Various Gizmos found in the house and garage.

Instructions:
Put on the sweat suit
Use the vent tubing for arms and legs.
Aluminum Pans for front and back of torso
Cut Milk Jug for a helmet (decorate with gizmos and magic markers)
Cover the old sneakers with silver paint or duct tape.
Attach pieces with duct tape or thread.

SKELETON
Materials: Dark Colored Sweat Suit (preferably black)
White Contact Paper
Scissors
White and Black make-Up
Instructions:
Draw the various bones on the white contact paper.
Cut out the bones and attach to sweat suit.
Use the makeup to color the face (white) and eyes (black)

HARRY POTTER
Materials:
Collared shirt and dark pants
Old Glasses (Dollar stores will have inexpensive fake ones)
Tie
Wand (a nicely crooked stick from the backyard will do nicely)
Eyeliner
Cloth or felt
Instructions: Using a photo dress the child as closely to the photo as possible.
For the cape and scarf use felt or scrap cloth.
Use the eyeliner to draw the ‘scar’ on Harry’s forehead.

Who said Muggles weren’t magical?

TUB OF BUBBLES
Materials: Inexpensive Rectangular Laundry Basket
Cloth Straps or old suspenders
White Paper
Glue or tape
Scissors
Old baseball Cap
Small Balloons
Instructions:
Cut holes in bottom of laundry basket so legs can comfortably fit through.
Make straps to go over the shoulders & attach front/back of basket.
Line basket with white paper.
Attach blown up balloons to basket with tape or glue
Attach some balloons to baseball cap.
(this idea can also be used for laundry)

DOG – DALMATIAN
Materials:
Hooded white sweat shirt
White sweat pants
Black felt
Black face paint
Instructions:
Cut various sized ‘spots’ from the black felt
Sew or glue the ‘spots’ all over the sweat suit and hood.
Cut and sew dog ears onto the hood

BONUS: CREATING YOUR OWN MAKE-UP1) ALIEN & ZOMBIE MAKE-UP
Take foundation make-up and add food coloring to it – green for witches, aliens or zombies, black for zombie eyes, blue for smurfs etc.

2) FACE PAINT
1 tsp. corn starch
1/2 tsp. water
1/2 tsp. cold cream
food coloring
Mix all ingredients together in an old muffin pan and you are ready to paint. This amount makes one color.

3) BLOOD
Mix 2/3 cup white corn syrup
1 tsp. red food coloring
2-3 drops blue food coloring to darken
1 squirt dish soap (helps consistency)

Mix ingredients and apply appropriately.

Sources used in creating this article: Families.com, Scrapits.com, LivingonaDime.com

Other Frugal Yankee articles you may enjoy:

13 Fiendishly, Smart Halloween Tips
A Frugal Halloween
Halloween Costumes – The DIY Way
Halloween Safety – Not So ScaryDo you have a tradition or idea you’d like to share? Please do.

There is no sense in asking their upper management to take less money or their overpaid CEOs to forego their ‘bonuses’ for either the good job or bad job they have don. No, they want to stick their hands into the pockets of the regular folks out there to make their bottom line look attractive to those folks over on Wall Street.

Now some savvy smaller banks are hoping to use this avariciousness to their advantage by offering better deals. One hopes there are enough smart, rural people out there who will drop those big banks and go with these smaller, more community oriented financial institutions.

But here’s a thought.

Let’s really muck them up. Let’s do something that is time proven, smart and we all know that works. Use cash.

Think about it for a second. If we all start using cash, we will be much more frugal. Studies have shown that people who use cash are less likely to indulge in impulse buying. When we see the money go from our pocket to someone else’s, we tend to be more hesitant.

Yet what I really like is that if more and more of us start using cash, the whole credit structure will have its foundation shaken. Then those over paid CEOs and bean counters will have to worry that their market is diminishing. The vision of those greedy bastards finally realizing that we, the American people, are not a bunch of chickens to be plucked whenever they choose, is simply delightful.

Sadly, I saw one TV ‘man on the street’ interview with a woman who said, it won’t be so bad. It’s only $5 month. All I could think is, ‘what a sucker?’ Is that what Americans think when it comes to money? No wonder we’re voting for a bunch of mediocre leaders. We can’t tell the difference between getting screwed and being treated with respect.

Oh well, I think I’ll go back to my vision of those fat cats getting scared. I like that much better. I can dream, can’t I?

The first months of 2011 stunk, business was down 14%. As the summer releases slowly roll out, these self same purveyors of negativity are optimistic that this summer will, but these exhibitors are so out of touch they haven’t figured out they are their own worst enemies. Now before anyone accuses me of being a callous observer, relax. I was an exhibitor for 30 years. I started when popcorn was 75¢ and a small drink was 12oz not the current cup size which requires two hands and significant muscle just to lift.

Here are a few observations of what I mean.

When a ticket is purchased on line, a service charge of $1.00 or more is added. So a ‘service’ which is designed to eliminate lines at the box office, lower labor costs and make the exhibitor’s operations easier becomes a cash center. The convenience charge is only convenient to the person selling the ticket. If exhibitors really wanted to make on-line tickets work, make it free or charge only a pittance like 25¢. It defeats the purpose when the service charge can be as much as 15% of the ticket price.

Here’s another example, at least one major chain wants to develop a “loyalty” by offering a card that promises deals. These loyalty cards are designed to breed an affinity for theater in the hope patrons will come more frequently. Oh, but to join this club, you have to pay dues to the tune of $12 a year, yes, $12 per annum for the privilege of being loyal. Why would anyone pay to be loyal? Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around? Of course, the program aimed at the wrong demographic, but that’s a whole other issue.

Now, let’s stroll over to the concession stand. We all know that everything is over priced, but it is also over sized. A person of my age has no desire to consume 72 ounces of popcorn in one sitting. Nor do I want to ingest a quart or more of soda as I watch a film. If there were regular sizes at normal prices, I may purchase something. These days, I sneak my drinks in despite those self-serving warning signs designed to intimidate.

Even if I were interested in candy, it too is a joke. For $4.00 you get a box with some candy sealed in plastic. When you compare the size of the box and the size of the actual candy, you realize that the box is twice as big as the candy. Big box, high price. You feel ripped off just buying a candy bar. Yeah, that’ll make me want to come and spend money at a concession stand. No, I’ll head over to the local neighborhood chain drug store that sells nearly everything but health to find some inexpensive candy.

In 2011, the studios and the exhibitors love 3D. Why? So they can charge more of tickets, but the unspoken truth is that many of the 3D films make less money than the same film in 2D especially family films. Here’s an example the recent release PRIEST is shown in 3D. It looks like a good trashy “B” movie, but who wants to pay 3D prices to see it? Apparently not many people. It tanked. How many other people are like that out there? More than the industry is willing to admit.

Are starting to get the drift?

Exhibitors are using every trick in the book to get as much money out of their business as possible. That’s not wrong and many businesses do the same, but exhibitors as well as distributors just don’t get it.

In their zeal to make money now, they are not building audiences and they audience they do have, they insult customers with high prices, small sizes, bogus ‘loyalty’ programs and endless ads before movies and nothing that says we care about you. They are short sighted and quickly becoming dinosaurs. Extinction is looming.

The NY Post, Fox News on cable and several other media outlets owned by Rupert Murdoch are not focusing on the story. The Murdoch/conservative apologists are saying “It’s unfair, unnatural, and stupid to insist that News Corp. cover News Corp.” (Washington Post) Actually, that would be true if there weren’t an underlying code of honor in journalism. Journalism strives for the truth. Journalism’s role is to inform the public. That’s what is expected. The fact that these apologists and the media outlets aren’t applying the public’s right to know is an indicator what is so wrong with concentrated media.

Concentrated media holdings stifle competition and allows potentially damaging reports, either by omission or commission to evolve. This scandal now has both. News Corp companies have committed crimes and now News Corp companies are not reporting these crimes. One can only imagine if this scandal was at the door step of the NY Times. Fox News would be there 24/7. They’d be calling for heads to roll all the while gloating about “liberal lack of family values”.

We’ve seen this before in the movies. Back in the 30s Frank Capra’s films were full of tycoons who tried to manipulate the public. In CITIZEN KANE, the two headlines during the Kane election were “Fraud at the Polls” or “Kane Wins” depending on how it suited the owner of the newspaper chain. There are more examples. We have been warned. The power to inform can, and will be subverted for less than honorable reasons.

There are many good reporters at the media outlets in question, but the leaders of News Corporation, and Fox News in particular, have been exposed. They are not ‘fair & balanced’. They are not journalists. They are vain, arrogant, and sometimes biased criminals wrapping themselves in a political philosophy to sell news and ads.

There is an old fisherman’s saying, “The fish stinks from the head.” Simply, it means when a fish starts to rot, the head smells first. Mr. Murdoch it is time to get ahead of this scandal and start lopping off the bad heads. it is time for true journalism to find a home at News Corporation. If not, you’re the smelly head.

These knowledgeable people look at the incredible grosses for Michael Bay’s loud, meaningless TRANSFORMERS: DARK SIDE OF THE MOON as proof.
<center></center>
The problem was simple. Hollywood has banked on 3D technology to wow audiences and to fill their coffers. Initially the new technology did indeed bring audiences back to the theaters, but after duds like PRIEST and even GREEN LANTERN, it became apparent. 3D will only go so far. It is too costly for families to pay the ticket cost premium. More importantly, the quality of the films being offered in 3D was simply inferior. Poor plots, ill conceived use of the effects and more, told movie goers that they were being sold snake oil.

Prior to the film’s release the LA Times quotes director Bay, “Let’s make the audience believe again” referring to 3D. The vice chairman of Paramount, the distributor was also quoted. He said, “In the U.S., we had to win a lot of people back to 3-D.”

So Hollywood is looking at TRANSFORMERS as the oracle that will assure them they don’t have to worry. At first blush the numbers makes that assurance. A closer look tells a different story.

For example, factoring out revenues, the same number of people saw the film in 2D as 3D. Factor in that many locales did not offer a 2D option. Hollywood has been insisting theirs convert to 3D or else. Paramount being one of the more aggressive in forcing exhibitors to bend to their will.

Is TRANSFORMERS the divinely inspired savior of Hollywood? No. Will 3D make a rebound? No. Is 3D dead? No.

Like many industries, film making and by extension film going is in transition. Well crafted 3D films like TRANSFORMERS are events. Please note, I said well crafted. The 3D effects in TRANSFORMERS are top of the line special effects.

Event pictures will always draw people into the national conversation and do well at the box office, but 3D films alone will never be Hollywood’s main focus. What TRANSFORMERS has confirmed is that films like this will be made for the gobble marketplace, not the national one, but that’s another story, one in black & white, profit & loss.

#####

Read more at Boston Sci-Fi.com

Occasionally the talk show host strikes gold. A national tragedy, or an international incident or an untimely death stirs the national conversation. To be a part of that conversation, people join by flocking to the ‘experts’ and listening as they dispense their pearls of insight.

Prior to the capture of the infamous Whitey Bulger, Howie Carr was a guest on Fox TV’s Bill O’Reilly show. He was there to parse the FBI’s TV ad campaign to capture the aforementioned Bulger by focusing on his girlfriend and her tendencies. The FBI ran ads on some specific TV shows including THE VIEW. Here is what Boston’s self-acknowleged Whitey Bulger expert and radio host said.

“Yeah. I don’t quite understand it, Bill. They haven’t seen either Whitey or Catherine Grieg in the United States since 1996. They haven’t been seen anywhere in the world credibly since 2002. I don’t know why they are running all these spots on American TV because I don’t think they have been here for a long time.”

Of course that all was moot because hours later Bulger was arrested in Santa Monica. Now Bulger is making the rounds as the ‘Go to guy’ on Bulger even though he totally missed it the day before.

There is no problem when an expert gets it wrong, but let’s sit back a moment and consider what Howie Carr would have said if the person who made the error of assessment was in his cross hairs, say a politician or a Harvard professor or someone in the arts. Now lets consider why no one is calling for Howie Carr to atone for his error.

There is a word for this, but let’s no go there. Let’s simply say it seems that what is good for this goose is not good for the gander.

#####

The Frugal Yankee is opinionated and thrifty, not necessarily in that order. Find out more at FrugalYankee.com where you can buy FRUGAL YANKEE GUIDE TO SUPERMARKETS.

Floods in the Midwest disrupting plantings. Tornadoes destroying crop land. Fuel prices shooting up affecting fertilizer prices and transportation costs. The global food supply is upset by political unrest. Global warming is changing crop yields.

The result? Coffee prices are at a 14 year high. Corn prices have doubled in 12 months. Meat prices are heading higher. The big cereal manufacturers are increasing their prices. Everywhere we look these days, food is either higher in cost or to compensate, smaller in size.

Belts have already been tightened as the recession lingers. Making due is a regular state of affairs and with these new pressures on food supplies, feeding a family is now tougher than ever.

And it doesn’t look like it will get any easier soon.

For decades Americans have benefited from an advanced agricultural infrastructure. From the farms to the supermarkets, food costs as a percentage of total family expenditures had reached historic lows. Now that benefit is being challenged by everything mentioned above.

With all of that in mind, understanding how supermarkets work can help families save thousands of dollars every year. Stores use loss leaders, items at very low prices to draw people in. Many savvy shoppers look for these and stock up. But many stores also work on 13 week schedules. So an item that is not seasonal maybe a loss leader one week and then again 13 weeks later.

Many tips like this can be found on FRUGALYANKEE.COM, but just as important if you have a tip or idea on how to save money at the grocery store, please share. We’re all in this together.

#####

The Frugal Yankee finds real value in the real world. Check out their new book GUIDE TO SUPERMARKETS.

Me? I was amazed to find that Playboy still published a magazine.
Maybe we’re getting nostalgic for the good old days like the 50s and 60s when corseted clad babes in high heels was naughty enough to titillate a society. That nostalgic angle gets more play when you consider one of the new TV shows hitting the broadcast air this fall is situated in a Playboy Club, and called THE PLAYBOY CLUB circa early 60′s.

The drama seems to be blending several concepts near and dear to Hollywood’s mercenary heart. They want to tap into the MAD MEN zeitgeist, they want to show beautiful young women’s bodies off, and the format allows for multiple story lines.

If well done, the show could spark a resurgence in all things PLAYBOY. Not sure if that’ll be a good thing or not. For example,  if you take a close look at the trailer, the cinematography fetishistically adores the ‘Playboy key’, a faded item of power & remembrance. Washing the Playboy Clubs with a brush of nostalgia will say more about our current sexual confusion than about the actual time of their ascendancy.

Doesn’t this all sound like a quaint anachronism?

In the Best Supporting Actress category, lots of people talked about Mila Kunis’ performance from BLACK SWAN. Yes, she was fine, but doesn’t it say more about Darren Aronovsky’s direction that he got such a good performance out of her? Remember BOOK OF ELI came out this year and Ms Kunis played it not as if she were in a post-apocalyptic world, but as if she were heading down to the Galleria Mall in the Valley.  Then others talked about Barbara Hershey in BLACK SWAN as well. Yeah, she was good. For my money, Juliette Lewis’ white trash meth head in CONVICTION was great turn. Too bad the film drifted off into oblivion, otherwise she might have been mentioned.

Keeping in the actress category, for Best Actress tow snubs were Julianne Moore and Emma Stone. Ms Moore as the counterpoint to Annette Bening in THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT. Ms Bening is odds on favorite, but her performance would not have reach its stride without Ms Moore. In yet another smack down of comedy, Emma Stone’s EASY A performance was Oscar worthy. The film would have been another mindless teen comedy without her intelligence and comic timing. When will the Oscar honchos realize that comedy needs its own categories?

There will be lots of conversations about Justin Timberlake or Andrew Garfield were stiffed in the Best Supporting Actor category. Or how Mark Wahlberg’s co-stars all got nods, while he was left out of the ring, but the most egregious failures of this year’s Oscar nominations come in the directing category. How Christopher Nolan was omitted for INCEPTION is mind boggling? Or how come TOY STORY 3, the highest grossing film of the year and arguably one of the best was stiffed? In both cases their genre probably hurt them. Yes, they can be Best Film nominees, but the directors had less to do with it than some other aspect of the film. It is the bias of the voters which gravitate towards smaller, more dramatic films when it comes to direction. None of the five nominees made classic blockbusters. Yes TRUE GRIT and SOCIAL NETWORK have grossed extremely well, but that says more about the audience than the industry.

Another directorial snub was Ben Affleck’s THE TOWN. Affleck’s assurance and intelligence as a director makes anticipating his next film an optimistic endeavor. One final snub in the directorial category was Debra Granik for WINTER’S BONE. Taking a small premise, a minuscule budget, and unknown actor and turning it into one of the best films of the year is a hard task. Ignoring that feat, is an Oscar mistake.

When we sit back and analyze the Oscar nominations, it is easy to pick it apart and say, what about this one or that one? The people who vote for the Oscars do have their prejudices. These prejudices are evident. The next step is to guess what will actually win or lose. Come back soon to this column. There are predicators, tips and insights on how to get good at that. First tip,