It happens every once in a while – Holloween falls in the middle of the week and we’re forced to dress up once, twice, sometimes three times in order to fulfill the pre-weekend, weekend, and actual Halloween events.

So here it is, if you don’t yet have plans, I would suggest just closing your eyes and picking one of these!

Boo!

OCTOBER 26: Masquerade Mayhem Rock band ESITU puts on a Halloween concert especially for rockers, starting at 7:30 p.m. at Studio Seven, $10 advance/$12 at door

OCTOBER 27: PULSE: The Ultimate Halloween Bash at the MPO, 8:00 p.m., $39

OCTOBER 27: Halloween Party with The Stunt Doubles performing live at A Terrible Beauty Irish Pub, 9:30 pm.

OCTOBER 27: Pumpkin-carving/painting party with the Seward Park Audubon Center from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. BYOP (bring your own pumpkin) or use one of theirs for a nominal donation. Patterns, tools, tarps, paints, paintbrushes and accouterments, including a candle are provided.

OCTOBER 28: The Junction’s Harvest Festival, 10 am-2 pm (kids’ costume parade and trick-or-treating noon-2 pm; farmer’s market; harvest activities)

OCTOBER 28: Bellevue Arts Museum‘s BAM-O-Ween from noon-4 p.m. Sunday. Enjoy art projects and demonstrations celebrating All Hallow’s Eve, including magic hats, Shaker brooms, masks, mobiles, piñatas, spiders, face-painting, and a 2 p.m. performance by Seattle Children’s Theatre

The line up is out and this Summer’s movies in Fremont are some of the best. Many of them with a special themed event to go along with it. Such as a viewing of Caddyshack with a beer garden/mini golf/pub crawl. Don’t ask me how it works now, but I could certainly follow up with my review.

Some classics and even some more recent blockbusters will show during this season’s Fremont Outdoor Movie events on the big screen located at 3501 Phinney Ave North Seattle, WA 98103 . The cinema screen is directly in the U-Park parking lot by Fremont Studios.
Quite fitting, this summer’s movies kicks off this Saturday night with the 20th anniversary of the movie Singles – the flick centers on the lives of a group of young people, mostly in their 20s, living in an apartment block in Seattle.

The great favorite will be back again this year: Red, White and Dead Zombie Walk. This year marks the fourth year of one of the largest flash mobs to infect the 4th of July weekend in the (Dead) Center of the Universe. Last year, over 7,000 people showed up to help go after a Guinness World Record from previously with New jersey for 4,522 costumed people. Plus it includes a Thriller Dance, Fashionably Undead costume contest, charity beer garden and live music and food trucks.

I snapped a photo of the line up the other day when I was walking home from work. Check it out, pick your fav (personal devotion to Top Gun for this girl) and show up.

Best Halloween costume ever. Round of applause for The Piece of Toast.

I’m going to be Peter Pan for Halloween. Going to get myself some American Apparel green leggings, an XL Boys Peter Pan costume (for the shirt and hat), some elf ears, a wooden sword and potentially a stuffed Tinkerbell to glue to my shoulder. I have a plan and a list, and I’m feeling good. No awkward costume drama this year. Now I just need somewhere to show off my awesomely juvenile comfortable costume. Lucky for me, Seattle is pulling out all the Halloween stops this year. I did a little research to help us all find the best place to party this Halloween. Check out the fruits of my labor below.

FreakNight Festival

Be (mostly) naked, wear a spirit hood, coat yourself in glitter, find yourself a Ring Pop and perfect your shuffle. FreakNight is back with DJs and tweakers galore. But for real, jokes aside, this will be a really fun event. Some of the best dance music ever! Tickets are on sale now. Event is Friday, October 28th at the WaMu Theater. Ages 18 and up are welcome so uh, watch our for those underage dance partners.

The Ultimate Halloween Bash

Self-proclaimed to be Seattle’s largest Halloween bash, the Showbox at the Market will host live bands, a DJ and a $1,000 prize costume contest. The photos from last year look pretty epic. I think we may have found a goodie. Tickets are on sale now. Event is Saturday, October 29th. Doors open at 8 p.m.

Halloween Pub Crawl

One massive costumed pub crawl. Yes, puh-lease! NO cover charges, happy hour prices, free food, dance floors — I think Peter Pan may have to make an appearance here. And the best part is that the lovely creators of this event made sure to schedule it around many of the huge Halloween bashes happening around the city including FreakNight and BonzaBash. Event is October 29th from noon to 8 p.m. (day drinking, yay!) and will stick to the Pike, Pine and First area. Actual bar locations will be announced closer to the event date.

A House

Your house, your friend’s house, the neighbor’s house. No matter how big or crazy a sponsored Halloween party is, a simple house party can always be equally as fun. All your friends in one place, looking ridiculous, acting ridiculous, bumbling around in awkward costumes. Don’t under estimate the house party. Always a good option. Now which one of my friends wants to host one? I promise to supply cobweb decorations and ample amounts of Peter Pan-ness. Any takers?

Hands-down one of the most awesome races/relays/family activities in Seattle is creeping up on us. And just in the nick of time to help us detox from this crazy warm weather we’re having in November- if this is La Nina, then I’ll take it.

Gather your friends, co-workers, family, and any one else looking to have a great time (and perhaps burn some calories too) and participate in the Winter Pineapple Classic 2010. Strap on your grass skirt, secure your coconuts and hang on to your pineapples (literally) because this is no ordinary jog around the park.

The hawaiian themed team event is on Saturday, November 13, 2010, first wave of participants starts at 9:00 A.M. The race is at new venue this year to accommodate additional parking and adequate space to set up the 3-mile-long obstacle course (Mountain Meadows Farm: 10106 422nd Lane SE, North Bend, WA 98045 Map). Your team, carrying a pineapple, is timed as you complete a 5k run with obstacles dispersed throughout the course. You will need your teammates to help complete some obstacles.

Have a little fun with this one, dress up, get dirty, laugh and celebrate the island life without even getting on a plane.

Fees are $60/individual, $105/2-person team, and $185/4-person team.  Please categorize your team as either Honu (Hawaiian for turtle — teams that plan to walk), Wiki (Hawaiian for fast — teams that plan to run), or Kekoa (Hawaiian for warrior — teams that plan to win this race).

Register teams as:

• Teams of two or four in single gender or co-ed teams.
• King Kamehameha teams are 2-person teams over 400 lbs or 4-person teams over 800 lbs.

Awards will be given to the fastest teams in all categories and prizes will be given for Best Aloha Spirit (costume).

The Winter Pineapple Classic happens rain or shine, so while we’re being spoiled now with gorgeous fall weather, be like a Washingtonian and bring a change of warm clothes, just in case.

The Winter Pineapple Classic benefits the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society whose mission is to find a cure for leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin’s disease and myeloma and to improve the quality of life for patients and their families.

My sister Stephanie and I in Edinburgh, Scotland at The Elephant House where J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter. My favorite part is the sign "Birthplace of Harry Potter. Now serving draught beers..." Now you can catch a piece of Harry Potter history here in Seattle.

Muggle.  Quaffle.  Gryffindor.  Dumbledore.  Since the release of the first Harry Potter book in 1997 these nonsense words have come to have meaning for thousands of people.(However, if those words mean nothing to you just do yourself a favor and stop reading this now.  There are no spoilers, just extreme nerdiness to follow.)   Those seven books will have spawned eight movies, 2 full length internet musical parodies , YouTube puppet videos, endless ridiculous merchandise, and has also given throngs of adults semi-legitimate excuses to go out in public dressed like a wizard.  (All you need is a striped scarf, and old graduation robe and a stick for a wand and you have an instant Hogwats student costume).

Seattle has just opened up another reason to break out your dress robes and make J.K. Rowling even wealthier.  Harry Potter: The Exhibition has landed, like a mail-carrying owl here in Seattle at the Pacific Science Center.  The exhibit opens today and will run through January 30, 2011. The exhibit does require separate admission from the science center itself so check it out early before all the good days and times are taken.  Admission prices can be found here.  The exhibit is mostly a collection of props from the movies ranging from Harry’s glasses to a large selection of costumes to a full size hippogriff.  There are some interactive parts like trying your hand at tossing a quaffle through a Quidditch hoop and potting a mandrake.

Even if the prospect of wandering through a little slice of Hogwarts doesn’t excite you (and I must say I’m not the biggest fan of staring at stuff that was in a movie or once touched  by someone famous) the other cool part is the accompanying IMAX movies.  If you can’t wait for part one of the Deathly Hallows (which comes out on November 19th) you can see some of the old movies the way they should be seen.  On a screen six stories high!   They are currently playing the Prisoner of Azkaban and will move on to Goblet of Fire, Order of the Phoenix, and Half-Blood Prince before the new movies is released.

So come be nerdy and please bring friends.  You do not want to be that guy wandering around alone in a cape at a children’s exhibit.  Also, for the record, though I may have attended a midnight book release or three I never did go to any of these in costume.  I just wanted to make that clear.

You can totally make a respectable replica of this costume!

So, as you may have noticed from the last couple of posts, and all of the pumpkins and zombies and non-Twilight vampires bombarding you from storefronts, Halloween is fast approaching.  I really enjoy dressing up for Halloween and I think Shannon really has the right idea (though by her own admission, the execution is lacking.  Good luck this year!).  I am pretty much totally opposed to buying a pre-made, mass-produced costume.  It takes all of the fun out of it.  (Note:  This rule does not apply if you have small children)  However, if you are an adult capable of putting together your own costume you should do it.

Now for those of you who are sewing impaired this does not necessarily meant that you need to sew your own costume.  If you can, more power to you and I’m sure it will be great, but if you can’t there is no need to panic.  For instance last year I sewed myself a Princes Leia costume (and no, for the LAST TIME, it was not the gold bikini), but my boyfriend’s Han Solo was made mostly from thrift store pieces slightly altered.  We cut the sleeves of a jacket to make a vest and added red ribbon to the side of the pants to make the stripe.   We made his gun holster out of craft store foam.  You can certainly make alterations by sewing ( and I do because I’m an unstoppable perfectionist) but you certainly don’t have to.  One of the great things about a Halloween costume is that it only has to look great for a little while.  It only needs to hold together for the one night, and not necessarily th whole night.  It really only needs to look awesome until everyone has had a chance to see it and they hand out the Best Costume awards.  Feel free to hold pieces together in the meantime with duct tape, hot glue, iron-on seam tape, stick-on velcro, bungee cords, staples, you name it.  As long as it remains in one piece for most of the night you’re golden.

To me there is something so satisfying about going to every thrist store in the Seattle area in order to find all of the perfect pieces (It need not be THIS involved – Like I said I am a perfectionist).  Here are some places you should hit up for you Halloween needs:

Seattle Goodwill: There is one in Ballard and one south of downtown.  There are also quite a few in the greater Seattle area.  I would suggest skipping the Goodwill Outlet, also south of downtown.  It just has clothes in huge piles and though it’s very cheap isn’t very user friendly if you’re looking for something specific.

Value Village:  Locations in Capitol Hill, Lake City and North Ballard/Crown Hill.  Value Village also generally has a selection or ready-made costumes if you need a wig or something to top off your look.

St. Vincent De Paul: Locations on Aurora and in Burien.  Another good basic thrift store.

There are also “vintage” stores like Redlight (Capitol Hill and U District) which can charge a little more (because it’s “vintage”) but might also be a good place for period-appropriate fashions if you’re going retro.

Please, help make Halloween the fun, creative event it’s supposed to be and don’t just buy another slutty nurse costume!  Make yourself a slutty nurse  costume!

For all of us that don’t want to dress as the “slutty take out box” and may be looking for a little more warmth like our lovely Belle Shannon, this ones for you!

If you’re going the mysterious masquerade route, you must gather your troop and head down to the Fremont Studios for the Bonza Bash Halloween 2010 Masquerade Costume Ball, Saturday, October 30 @ 8:00pm. Fremont Studios is known for being one of the best Halloween party venues in the city, they do it up right every time. And once again this year, the glowing pumpkin atop the studio roof will be calling trick-or-treaters  dressed to the nines for a legit costume party and ball. But you must come dressed. You’re welcome to take the classic black tie and mask option or take it… well… the other direction (you ALL know what I’m talking about). Regardless, dress code is enforced so don’t try any funny business.

There will be over $10,000 in prizes for the costume contest. Top-dollar prize is a trip for two to Australia. Others will be announced here as the event approaches. There’s a category for everyone, so do your best to impress, there’s not excuses. Categories are: Best overall, best masquerade, best group, sexiest male and sexiest female.

Need a costume? Waiting until the last minute?  There will be masks for sale at Fremont Studios on the night of the event.

And tickets – BUY THEM NOW. This event sells out every year, if you’ve ever been in Fremont for Halloween you’ve marveled at the crowds outside the studio begging to get in. Tickets are on sale now at Shindigg.com for $40.

Update! The costume was finished on time and in one piece. Arts and crafts success!

Halloween costume success!

I wanted to be a Crayola crayon for Halloween. Either Red Violet or Jungle Green. I was undecided. I got the idea from a Parents magazine piece on costumes for children. And before you start making fun of me for reading a magazine meant for busy parents — a role I am at least five years away from taking on, if ever —  allow me to explain. Public relations professionals such as myself are often required to read publications we normally wouldn’t, Parents being a perfect example. Normally I would have no use for a magazine dedicated to the feeding, rearing, entertaining and whatever-elsing of young children. However, when said magazine is expected to include my client’s cheese grater in a Best Kitchen Tools for the Busy Mom feature, I skim the pages and from time to time stumble upon really awesome ideas ie. a Crayola crayon costume. What can I say? I work a glamorous 9 to 5.

I gave up on the crayon costume for two reasons. Number one, I was mercilessly ridiculed by my peers. Apparently, crayon costumes are not cool. Who knew? Certainly not me. Number two, I realized (thanks to a gentle and patient reminder from a good friend) that I am terrible at purchasing/making Halloween costumes. I dream up grand ideas of what I want to be and then never follow through. I wait until the very last minute,  and then either can’t find the crucial piece and/or realize I don’t have the arts and crafts skills necessary to make it (the crayon costume required sewing) at which point I end up disappointed and wearing a haphazard, thrown together costume on Halloween night. Oh, and like any mature adult, I spend the first part of the night whining about my crappy costume. All in all, not a good situation.

This is my "So excited about my crappy 60s/70s mash up costume" face.

Let me provide you with a few examples: Freshman year of college I tried to be a French maid (original, I know), but wound up looking more like a waitress wearing fishnets. Last year I wanted to be a pin-up girl, but procrastinated and settled for a 60s/70s mash up, courtesy of really big hair and a cheesy dress I found at Goodwill. And let’s not forget the year I decided to be a gangster, but really just looked like, well, a skank wearing a fedora. *sigh* Halloween has not been good to me. But this year will be different! I will redeem myself. This year my costume will be awesome because I have a new idea. An idea that is a million times cooler than a Crayola crayon. Or at least I think it is, but as the crayon episode has proved, I’m not really up on what’s “cool.” But nevertheless, this year for Halloween, I am going to be…

A CONVERSATION HEART!

I just blew your mind didn’t I? Oh man, it’s going to be amazing. I’ve even made some progress in costume preparation. See below…actually wait. A quick note for those ignorant in the ways of candy: conversation hearts are the little heart-shaped candies with words  imprinted on the front that people give each other on Valentine’s Day. Okay, now, see below.

So… maybe not that much progress, but glitter and glue is a start. And considering it’s only October 12th, I’m way ahead of schedule. Now all I need is some cardboard, pastel purple paint, and strips of cloth or flexible plastic. I’ve detailed my construction plan below. You’ll notice there is no sewing involved. Live and learn, people. Live and learn.

Step 1: Get my ass to Home Depot to buy cardboard, spray paint and something to make straps out of.

Step 2: Cut out two big hearts from the cardboard. And by big I mean, can’t-sit-in-the-cab-while wearing big. To answer your question, no I don’t plan on ever sitting down.

Step 3: Paint both hearts pastel purple, and write “Be Mine” on one using glue and red glitter.

Step 4: Attach the two hearts with the strips of cloth or plastic, and wear like a tent sign with black leggings and a black tee underneath.

What do you think, readers? Good idea? If so, feel to free to use the idea! I’d love to see Seattle crawling in conversation hearts on Halloween night. Viva la non-slutty costume! (I say this with all due respect to slutty costumes. I spent the last six years having a blast hooching it up on All Hallows’ Eve. I’m really looking for the warmth factor this time around. And maybe some extra coverage seeing as the gym hasn’t exactly been my best friend as of late. You get the idea.)

So fill me in. What are you costume plans? Can we please share pictures? I promise to post photos of my costume in all its glory, and I hope you’ll do the same!

Happy costume hunting