Trick or Treat……

Here’s the trick, finding great costumes for a reasonable price. Lets start with the costumes, this is something that can range in price from a few bucks if your creative to over $100, the thing to remember is that it’s a one shot thing, they will either outgrow what ever you decide on this year or it will be something outdated by next year. A couple of fun costumes I remember from my neighborhood growing up are the mummy and sisters that every year went out as a pair of dice. Both costumes are easy and inexpensive to make. The mummy just requires old white sheets, if you don’t have any at home try the 2nd had stores like the Salvation Army or Goodwill. The nice thing about this is your child can help make their costume. Begin by cutting starter slices in the sheets, then have the kids help you rip them into long strips. The strips are simply wrapped around your child’s body, arms and legs and tucked under to stay in place. Wrap one or two around the top of the head and one going around the chin and up over the head as well, be sure not to obstruct your child’s line of sight. To make the face light you can either pick up some white makeup (usually can be found this time of year at the dollar stores) or use a pressed powder that is very light. Dark lipstick or even black lipstick and dark eye shadow on the eyelids and under eye area will complete the look. For the dice all you need is a cardboard box that isn’t too big for your child, Whit spray paint, (A can 10oz can of Quick Dry Gloss white all purpose paint is only .97 cents at Home Depot. http://tiny.cc/lY7Bm ) Black construction paper, glue, scissors, box knife or sharp knife, tape, black clothes. The instructions for this easy costume can be found at: http://tiny.cc/Dice595. This can also be modified to be fuzzy dice by simply using a fuzzy fabric and covering the boxes before adding the construction paper dots, covering the box in gift wrap and adding a bow to your child’s head changes them into a Christmas gift, paint the box as a Rubik’s Cube to mimic the popular puzzle, or paint the box robins egg blue and add a white ribbon and viola, it’s a Tiffany box. If your kids insist on being the latest greatest thing to come out of Hollywood I would try a second hand store, one of the big ones in our area is Rag-Stock. EBay is another source for costumes but if you find one that is inexpensive make sure you don’t end up paying too much for the shipping. If you don't have and EBay account you can sign up for free at http://www.ebay.com/. Right now BuyCostumes.com is having a sale on some of their really cute costumes for kids as well as some great items for adults, you can find them at: http://tiny.cc/09mTy and if you use coupon code haunt65 you will get 10% off your order of $65 or more, there are more coupon codes for Buy Costumes available at http://tiny.cc/gdHox.

OK, now its time for the treat….. Candy!! Most of us don’t get a lot of kids that come through trick-or-treating, if that’s the case you can pick up candy now on sale at most retailers. This week Target has a great sale going, two 10 oz to 12.5 oz bags of candy for $5.00 or you could check out Sam’s clubs mixed Mars mini bag at 52 oz for $9.77 ( these are smaller than the fun size so kids will probably take a couple at a time so its about the same value as the Target bags with the fun size.) If you start running low remember that most Walgreen's are open 24/7, they currently have bags of candy available for $3.99 but I think if you need them on Halloween night the price will be even less by then. Nestle has two coupons available at their web site, one for a fun size bag of Butter Fingers and one for a fun size bag of Wonka Candy, the links to print the coupons are along the edge of the site at: http://tiny.cc/BbgLP. If you get more children ringing your doorbell than most folks then try a place that specializes in mass quantity, ordering on line there is the Candy Warehouse http://tiny.cc/2DF0E, they are offering assorted chocolate 6 pound bags (96 oz) for $24.00 plus shipping, there are about 240 pieces in a bag but again they are the small size so kids may take two or more each. They also have non chocolate candies available starting at around $7.50 + shipping for mini packs of Gummy Worms but these are less cost effective since they are only 1.5 pounds or 45 pieces. You can get 15% off at Candy Warehouse using coupon code CWDC15. I checked a large number of online bulk candy distributors and they were the least expensive, however, shipping rates vary from state to state.

Hope all this is helpful, have a great week!

C.Q.