If you start clicking now, you just might be able to order a big, new, spooky, fancy frightening item or two for the front yard to scare all the neighborhood hobgoblins. Remember, bigger is better when it comes to Halloween decor.

Inflatables are the quickest way to make a sinister statement. Turn your entryway into something really hair-raising with a 9-foot-tall inflatable mortuary archway ($119). Kids will love crawling through the inflatable haunted house with spooky sounds and lighting ($297, above). What could say “Fright Night” better than this Frankenstein monster cooking up a witch ($90)? 

(more…)

Hannah Montana hangs out here, and Bob the Builder, too - both sharing space with brides and hippies, rock stars and tourists, doctors and nurses. They’re all a dime a dozen on the racks of Goodwill stores.

“October is our busiest month at Goodwill stores,” said Lauren Lawson, representative of Goodwill Industries International. Not only do the stores carry new, packaged costumes for around $13, the rows and rows of clothing, shoes and boots, hats, belts, bags, linens and kiddie stuff need nothing but a bit of creativity to turn them into the coolest costumes on the street. (more…)

The job of the lovely people at the National Confectioner’s Association is to keep their thumbs in America’s candy dish at all times. They read your minds. They study your regional tendencies. They taste new candy and write about it on their Candy Dish Blog, as well as showing us candy-corn crafts and s’mores made in the shape of a computer keyboard (Yes, it’s true. See?).

And this time of year, they know what you’re giving out for trick-or-treat. Sweet.

(more…)

Dogs shouldn’t have all of the fun this Halloween. With a little prowling around, costumes can be found for those felines willing to put up with being dressed up. Of course, the very act of attempting to dress a cat could be just as scary as going through a haunted house. If you’re not afraid of claws or yowls or dirty looks from Fluffy, then go for it!

Bat Cat from The Gilded Paw, above left, is a mere $5, on sale. Wacky Planet’s princess outfit is $13 (above right.)

(more…)

Show us a little girl and odds are good that at some point in her childhood, she will want to be a fairy for Halloween.

Enter Costumes Fairy, a small business in Ashland, Ore., where the most beautiful fairy costumes are hand-made by a couple (Richard and Robin Reno, who goes by the alias Earth Star). The costumes are made from sturdy but ethereal fabrics that are “non-itchy”

Recently, Town and Country magazine asked Earth Star to provide costumes for Brooke Shields’ daughters to wear during a photo shoot.  

Among their offerings are the fairy moon princess, (above left), which features two layers of soft tulle, trimmed in satin. Without wings, the costume is $65, and with wings it’s $95. The Cinderella fairy dress (above right) is another wonderous costume at $55 (without wings).

(more…)

The thing about Halloween is this: We’re all in on the game. We know the front yard is not really a cemetery, the skeleton on the front porch is plastic, the eyeballs in the bowl are peeled grapes and the punch-bowl fog is caused by dry ice.

Yet, we play along, because illusion is fun and Halloween still reminds us of plastic buckets full of candy and all that jumpy frivolity.

(more…)

We cannot explain Halloween mania. It is not a gift-giving holiday, and it used to be merely an eating occasion for kids and sugar addicts. Now, every year, it starts earlier and grows, and grows, out of control, like one of those evil monster rabbits in Night of the Lepus.

Economy in the toilet? Sure, but that’s not stopping your neighbor from buying more spooky stuff to out-boo you. There are only two solutions: fight or give in. The Style Insider is giving in with enthusiasm, and we’re starting on your front porch.

(more…)