Who Wore It Better - The Orange Pumpkin Sweatshirt

Today I bring you the third installment of Who Wore It Better?

The first two contests had the hard-to-call black winter coat stand-off:

And the even more difficult to decide frog costume comparison:



And today?

I bring a tough three-way competition between my son, my daughter and a stuffed panda bear.

So, who do you think wore the orange pumpkin sweatshirt better?

Halloween 2011 {Wordless Wednesday}

I didn't manage to get any photos of my kids - they were a vampire, a zombie and a black cat - but I have these photos of their stuffed animals dressed-up for Halloween.

With schools closed where we lived, we had some extra time on our hands that day, and as it turned out, the next day, too.

Pretty Kitty

Brooklyn Hipster

Leather Bear and his Hag

Thank you to Mommy Shorts for the Halloween costume inspiration.


I'm linking-up with:

Happy Halloween!

My last Halloween post of the season - Three Things I can Live Without on Halloween is up at the Jersey Moms Blog today.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Snotober!

Tomorrow, I'll be joining the masses for my first NaBloPoMo.

Halloween, Kirtsy & Fair Trade Chocolate

Yes, the Halloween perseverations continue on...

Today, I'm over at Kirtsy sharing my picks for awesome Treat (or Trick) Bowls. There are some pretty amazing ones. I was so inspired by all the clever ideas I found that I even got all DIY crafty and made my own Halloween treat bowl.

With skull & cross bones Duck Tape of course.

And, thanks to Seeds of Change our Halloween bowl is all ready to get filled with chocolate for the neighbor kids:

And not just any chocolate, ethical chocolate. I usually just get super-fun erasers and tasty pretzels, but my husband thinks that is "completely and utterly unacceptable"so I caved and said we could give out candy this year.

Then I read Kristen Howerton's post Let me ruin Halloween for you... about how most commercial chocolate is made, and well, I just couldn't participate in buying piles of it for Halloween.

So instead, I found some fair-trade, ethically produced chocolate.

....and Halloween was saved for all the neighborhood children.

Thank you Duck Tape for the duck tape.

Thank you Seeds of Change for the chocolate.

Thank you Kirtsy for featuring my picks today.

And thank you Halloween for providing so much blog fodder.

To learn more about fair trade chocolate, read Ideas for an Ethical Halloween.

A Few Fun Ideas for Halloween - Costumes, Jack-O'Lanterns and Creepy Treats

With this being the homestretch last-week-before-Halloween, I wanted to share some fun Halloween ideas I wrote over at New Jersey Family in case you still have kids to costume, pumpkins to decorate, or snacks to bring to the class party.

10 Easy Kids Costumes You Can Make Yourself

10 Easy (and Not So Easy) Jack O'Lantern Decorating Ideas

6 Fun and Healthy Halloween Treats

4 Ghoulishly Fun Duct Tape Halloween Projects

I am in the middle of making my own Halloween duck tape masterpiece, hopefully it will be done in time...

Have you made anything cool for Halloween? Please leave links in the comments below - I would love to check it out!

Wordless Wednesday ~ Ziggy in the Pumpkin Patch

And yes, better late than never, I have discovered a new addiction Picasa.

AWESOME Duck Tape Halloween Ideas and a GREAT GIVEAWAY - CLOSED

This giveaway is now closed.

Congrats to the winner, Brittany C.!

 Neither my obsession with decorating Halloween pumpkins or with Duck Tape seems to be on the wane, so why fight it? Instead I'm bringing them together here.

Just look at the incredible Halloween creations you can make with Duck Tape.

Amazing and creative Jack O'Lanterns:

A cool candy corn loot bag for your Halloween candy haul:

Or black bat decorations to spookify your home:

And... I have AN AWESOME DUCK TAPE HALLOWEEN PRIZE PACK to giveaway courtesy of Duck Tape!

Entry:
To enter just leave a comment here with your email (or make sure your comment links to where I can find it) and tell me your favorite Duck Tape color.

For extra entries leave a comment for each of the below letting me know you already/do now:

• Follow this blog publicly via Google Friend Connect
• Follow @RandomHandprint on Twitter
• Follow @TheDuckBrand on Twitter
• Like RandomHandprints on Facebook
• Like Duck Tape on Facebook

If it's easier, you can also tweet or leave a message on the Facebook page that you follow/like and you don't need to also leave another comment below.

If you do ALL FIVE of the additional entries above, you can just leave one comment along the lines of "home run!" "the whole enchilada!" or even a reference to a trifecta or hat trick will work fine.

~ Good luck! Enter Now! Entries close on Monday, October 24 at 9pm EST ~

Giveaway small print: Contest open to U.S. residents age 18 and over. Contest ends at 9:00pm EST, Monday, October 24, 2011. Winners will be randomly selected via Random.org and announced here as well as emailed or messaged on Twitter with the good news. Entrants must provide contact information in their comment. If winner does not respond within forty-eight hours, a new winner will be selected. Prize supplied and fulfilled by Duck Tape. Colors of winning products will vary. I was not compensated for this post or for promoting this contest. I received a similar prize pack to review.

For more information and full giveaway rules, please contact anna@randomhandprints.com.
Good Luck!


And one last thing, if you have mad Duck Tape skillz, you should enter Duck Tape's Stick or Treat! Jack-O-Lantern decorating contest, full details here.

Who Wore It Better - The Frog Halloween Costume

Both my daughters were a frog for their first Halloween. So of course I have to ask, who wore it better?

My son insists he wants to be a cat this year, and will not carry on the proud tradition of the Halloween frog.

I'm trying to decide* between these:

Yes, those are the choices that come up when I searched for "toddler cat costume." I'm kinda appalled.

*I'm not really trying to decide between these options. I would not let a ten-year-old girl wears these get-ups, let alone a two-year-old boy. What has happened to our world that these things are even for sale for toddlers?

Incredible Pumpkins - Halloween Gone Good

Last year, I spent much of October complaining about Halloween - the slutty children's costumes, the over-the-top yard decor... in short, the commercialization of the holiday.

But not this year. No, this year I am just going to publish post after post of ridiculous Halloween stuff I find and call it Halloween Gone Good.

Today, I present Incredible Pumpkins - clearly some people think there are better ways to create a Jack O'Lantern than just hacking up a pumpkin with a kitchen knife. And while I admire them and their handiwork, there is not one of these pumpkins I think I could make myself.

I love this Polka-Dot Pumpkin, made with an apple corer, and putting pieces of one cored pumpkin into the other pumpkin:

Photo from Better Homes & Garden

Here is a close-up of the polka dotted pumpkin:

Photo from Better Homes & Gardens

In fact, Better Homes & Gardens as a whole slide show of fantastic Super-Fast Pumpkins with No-Carve Designs but there would be nothing super-fast about me doing any of these - I feel like it would take the better part of a day for me to even find an apple corer.

Better Homes & Gardens also has a slideshow entitled Quick and Easy Painted Pumpkins though  again, if I was the one doing the "quick and easy" painting it would actually be slow and agonizing... just look at these incredible pumpkins!

The Silhouette Pumpkin:

Photo from Better Homes & Gardens

The Stenciled Design:

Photo from Better Homes & Gardens

I'm sorry, but those do not look quick - or easy - to me.

Real Simple had some spectacular (but easy! really!) no-carve pumpkins, too.

I love this Chalkboard Paint Pumpkin:

Nothing says fun like kids wanting to change their pumpkin every day from now till October 31.

And last, I really love these thumbtack pumpkins.

Real Simple has initial and house number ones:

Photo from Real Simple

And MadiganMade has these simply stunning gilded pumpkins that are completely covered with gold thumbtacks.

At least she has the decency to admit it was not easy and that it took forever to put in all those brass tacks. 

And if you, like me, find that all this pumpkin awesomeness has left you feeling perhaps a little bit inferior, I leave you with one last equally cool idea that luckily requires almost no execution: The Masked Pumpkin:

Photo from Country Living

Genius.

What's the most clever pumpkin you've ever seen? My husband's pick is this old favorite, the puking pumpkin: