Halloween Celebration Checklist: From Costumes to Candy to Cards

Halloween is a little over a month away. How will you make it spooktacular this year? Below is a quick celebration checklist to ensure you’re ready.

Costumes or Orange & Black apparel
- Check out your local big box stores, but other great places for costumes include Costco, Cracker Barrel, Gymboree and party supply stores.
Candy or other treats
- Start clipping coupons now as candy gets expensive fast. Other great treats include pencils, erasers, travel tooth brushes and toothpaste, fruit snacks, Little Debbie Pumpkin Delights and microwave popcorn.

Decorations and lights
- Get the box out from the attic and basement and decorate. Maybe pick up a new decoration this year (I buy one a year so it doesn’t get expensive).
- Consider candy corn lights (like Christmas lights) for your now leafless trees.
- Luminaries are cheap, look great and help little costume crews find their way to your porch.

Pumpkins, hay bales and foddershock
- Pumpkins for porch décor and for carving (just don’t carve too soon).
- Pumpkin carving kits.
- Hay and Fodder make great outdoor décor – and “hey” your scarecrow needs something to sit on or lean against.

Halloween Photo Cards or Photo Invites
- Dress the kids up early and take a few pics to send photo cards to grandma and grandpa and other distant relatives. Who doesn’t like getting cards?
- Planning a Halloween party? Make it more festive with a photo card invite.

Halloween Greeting

What do you do for Halloween preparation that isn’t included in this list?

Be sure to have a camera in hand for all of your Halloween planning, decorating, pumpkin picking, parties and trick-or-treating. And, please remember the Halloween convention: a lit porch light means you’re accepting trick-or-treaters and a light that’s off means you’re not.

Have a Bootiful Halloween!

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Free your photos from the shoebox. Have them scanned.

I started my Christmas shopping this past weekend, in that I stumbled upon something that would be perfect for my best friend’s son.  My first official gift of the season meant it was time to sit down and write out who is on this year’s list and what I’d like to get them – if I have an idea of what at this point, and what price range I’d like to stay within. Writing out the list forces me to draft a budget and stay on schedule.

Staying in budget is obviously important as you don’t want holiday joy to be replaced with January regret and February depression.  Writing out the list and adding in the gift ideas months in advance lets you be creative, thoughtful and frugal – by scoping out sales, coupons and promos.

This leads me to my mom. My mom is a conundrum. Shopping for her has always been a challenge.  This year will be different, because I’ve already put a lot of thought into her gift. She is the family memory maker and keeper, but she’s gotten a bit lazy with regard to the keeping part and so, I want to help her out with that and show her how much I cherish the memories she’s made.

I’m going to surprise her by sneaking in her house and stealing her Rubbermaid tote of photos starting with 1987, when she stopped putting photo albums together, to the mid-90s when my parents were relieved of their photographer duties because my sister and I started taking pictures.

How is stealing a good gift idea? Because, I’m going to have her tote full of photos  scanned and made into digital files. Searching the web, I found several companies that do this and appear to do it well – even preserving videos. I also read a few reviews. Below are a few of the companies I’ve looked into, there are many more out there. Aside from saving time, you can save money by searching out current promo codes.

Companies:

www.digmypics.com

www.Scancafe.com

www.scandigital.com

Reviews:

http://www.digitalphotos101.com/photo-scanning-services.htm

http://www.macworld.com/article/143504/2009/10/outsourcescanning.html

I think I’ve decided which route to go and how many to scan to start with (to keep within my budget). Now, I just need to plan my thievery – and soon – so I stay on schedule.

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Weekend Project: State Fair, Parking Lot Carnival & Farmer’s Market

The end of summer provides many opportunities to venture out to your state or county fair, parking lot carnival or farmer’s market. Many are free to attend and the hours spent there are fun for the whole family. Best of all, there are many photo ops to be found among the food, livestock, music and rides.

Milking an artificial cow at the Indiana State Fair.

Preserve the look on your little one’s face the first time he or she saw an eggplant or rode a roller coaster or milked an artificial cow. Consider a nice panoramic photo of the mile-long row of concession stands or the midway lights dazzling in the night sky.

1st roller coaster ride at a parking lot carnival

One trip to your state fair or town hospital’s health and safety day might not provide a book’s worth of images, but the photos you take will make a great addition to the year’s family photo book or a good reminder to the kids when they say “we didn’t do anything fun this summer”.

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Put the “We” In Your Wedding Album

Let’s face it, the tried-and-true, stand-in-a-row-and-smile style wedding photos are nice to have, but do they really capture the personalities of you and your better half?

With a wedding album from Inkubook, you make the call on what shots go into your own album. And you get to personalize it in ways that your average album just can’t accommodate.

Tips for Making Your Personalized Wedding Photo Book

• Never worry about yellowing, fading or loss: Clip your wedding announcement from the newspaper and scan it to include in the photo book. Do the same with other paper goods, such as your save-the-date, invitation and program. See if the best man and maid of honor are willing to give you their hand-written notes from their toasts, too!
• Experience your big day from another angle: Ask friends and family to include their email addresses in the guest book; then invite them to upload their snapshots so that you can include them in your book.
• Don’t miss any special moments: Ask a friend or family member to capture candid moments – the tiny groomsman and flower girl napping in the corner; you and grandma cutting a rug to “We Are Family;” the happy couple driving away in their decorated car.
• Give it the 3-D feel of a keepsake scrapbook by scanning small items such as the bride’s garter, the groom’s tie, a flower from the bouquet, lace from the dress, etc.

Other Ways to Use Inkubook for Your Wedding

Use our Great Big Square style in place of or to supplement the traditional album with a more personalized Inkubook.

Put together photos from your engagement shoot for a guest book that you’ll actually want to display after the wedding day.

No matter where you plan to go, your first trip as husband and wife is sure to be memorable. Capture the excitement in a honeymoon travel book.

MORE IDEAS

• Create unforgettable thank-you gifts for parents, grandparents or members of the wedding party.
• Think ahead to the first anniversary. Start uploading photos from your honeymoon and other more basic snapshots that will remind you of your first year together.
• No wedding coming up? No problem. Gather old wedding pics and mementos and create an anniversary album for parents or grandparents.
• As an alternative to a wedding slideshow, compile all your favorite and funniest photos of each other into a Mini Brag book that you can incorporate into your table centerpieces. Buy as few as 10 copies and you’re eligible for Inkubook’s volume discount of 15%.

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Around the Web for October 23rd

The following are links to articles found around the Web for October 23rd from 14:53 to 18:50 that may help teach and inspire you in the process of making your drop-dead gorgeous Inkubook:

• Photojojo » Better Lenses for Less Money: How To Use Vintage Lenses with Your DSLR – Photojojo explains how to use older lenses. In most cases, an older film based lens from the same manufacturer as your camera will work on your DSLR although the autofocus likely will not work.
• Soy and Pepper: Food-o-graphie event: My cameras for food photography – The Soy and Pepper food blog discusses the various cameras used for shooting the food on the site and the reasons for selecting the cameras in questions. An interesting read with sample photos from each camera. The differences are surprisingly apparent between the point and shoot and the DSLR.
• Using Your Monitor as a Light Source – Part 1 | Yanik’s Photo School – A clever trick for using your computer monitor as a light source when photographing smaller objects. Allows you to change the color of the light to set tone and add an ambient glow to your objects. Very cool indeed.

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Around the Web for October 3rd through October 6th

The following are links to articles found around the Web for October 3rd through October 6th that may help teach and inspire you in the process of making your drop-dead gorgeous Inkubook:

• 5 Elements of Composition in Photography – Digital Photography School explains five elements of composing pictures and how to use these elements to create beautiful photographs.
• VeganYumYum » Food Photography for Bloggers – Advice for photographing food for bloggers. The article doesn’t just apply to bloggers, these tips will help inform and inspire anyone wanting to build a cookbook (or any sort of Inkubook that features food for that matter).
• Photojojo » Photojojo’s Guide to Macrophotography – Photojojo explores macro photography with a number of tips, tricks and techniques for photographing small objects and minute details.
• New GIMP 2DOT6 Gives Photoshop a Run For its Money – Webmonkey – A new version of GIMP (mentioned previously on Inkublog) is now available and offers a number of improvements in the uster interface. It’s certainly worth a quick upgrade.
• James Nachtwey – In a somber and sobering presentation, James Nachtwey demonstrates how photojournalism can shed light on issues around the globe. Truly a testament to the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words.

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