Ever wonder what goes into building the spectacularly spookiest costumes each Halloween? While it may take you days to compile your own (or your kids’ costumes), a new contest from Windows Live Movie Maker and Instructables.com asks trick-or-treaters to show off their movie-making in a matter of minutes. Simply create a 30-second movie (using photos and videos) to showcase the process of building their Halloween costume for the opportunity to win a new iCore 5 Gateway laptop with Windows 7 and Windows Live Essentials. To enter users can register an Instructables.com account and download Windows Live Essentials 2011. Contestants must submit their entries by Sunday, November 7. Winner is selected based on the use of Movie Maker and creativity in costume.
One winner will receive the Ultimate Windows Live Movie Maker Package:
* Brand new iCore 5 Gateway laptop with Windows 7 and Windows Live Essentials – perfect for home movie making and keeping your digital media organized!
* A Pure Digital – Flip Video MinoHD Camcorder
* Two year Pro Membership to Instructables.com
* Additionally, three contestants will receive a brand new Flip video camera and a 2-year Pro Membership for Instructables.com
Sunday, November 7 the Windows Live team will select the winners. If you need tips for completing your movie in Movie Maker, check out this page. For more information on the Movie Maker contest check out the Windows Experience Blog.
Enjoy this documentary about enthusiasts in Austin, Texas who love Halloween. Follow Bud Hasert (budcrud.com) as he designs and builds his Halloween costume over several months. He then parades it down 6th Street, as he has done for the past 20 years. This guy takes his costume planning and design seriously.
Halloween is no longer all about feeding kids junk food that is bad for their teeth and keeps them up all night. Parents now have much healthier options. These are Halloween treats that not only taste good but are made from the highest quality ingredients.
Max Goldberg runs an organic food blog called livingmaxwell.com. His blog focuses on his passion for organic food as a means to educate people about the organic experience and to inspire others to make positive lifestyle changes. Readers follow Max from his self-destructive and tumultuous journey to his emergence as a health and organic advocate.
Below are Max’s Top 5 choices for organic Halloween treats on the market this year.
ANGELL ORGANIC CANDY BARS
Angell Organic Candy Bar Co-Founder Christopher Angell says it is the only certified organic and fair trade candy bar on the market. The taste is rich, and the middle is soft and chewy. There are three flavors, one of which is vegan (Dark Angell) and one of which is gluten-free (Angell Crisp).
ANNIE’S ORGANIC BUNNY FRUIT SNACKS
An alternative to traditional Gummy Bears, Annie’s Organic Bunny Fruit Snacks have a softer and less chewy texture. The large bag of Annie’s Organic Bunny Fruit Snacks contains 24 small packs of fruit snacks that are all shaped like bunnies. The three flavors (strawberry, cherry and raspberry) are made with real fruit juice and contain 100% of the recommended daily vitamin C. Click HERE for nutrition info. The product is available nationwide. Find a store near you.
YOGAVIVE APPLE CHIPS
Yogavive Apple Chips are similar to other chips on the market, in that they taste great, but the sole ingredient in these snacks is fruit. For some of the flavored varieties, a small amount of all-natural flavorings is used.
The product, made with certified organic Fuji apples and no preservatives, is baked using a two-part drying process and then is popped to deliver a snack that is 100% fat-free and bursting with real apple flavor. The five flavors include: Original, Apple Cinnamon, Caramel, Peach, and Strawberry.
For Halloween, the small 10g bags are ideal. Yogavive Apple Chips are available nationwide. Click HERE for a store locator. They can also be purchased online.
YUMMY EARTH ORGANIC FRUIT LOLLIPOPS Yummy Earth Organic Fruit Lollipops. They come in four fantastic flavors: Mango Tango, Pomegranate Pucker, Tooberry Blueberry, and Wet-Face Watermelon. Each bag contains 15 lollipops. Yummy Earth Organic Fruit Lollipops are available nationwide. Click HERE for a store locator. They can also be purchased online.
GO FUDGE BROWNIE
Not only is the Go Fudge Brownie the perfect size for a Halloween treat but it is a 100% dairy-free and sugar-free snack. This brownie is rich and filling, possibly being one of Max’s favorite desserts. It is sweetened with agave and the other ingredients include almonds, cacao, cashews, vanilla and Himalayan salt. Furthermore, the Go Fudge Brownie is raw, which means that nothing has been heated above 118 degrees, and therefore it retains all of the nutrients and enzymes. This brownie is available at health stores/organic markets nationwide and online.
This year, don’t get tricked with the same old sugary treats. Have a safe, healthy and organic Halloween!
About livingmaxwell / Max Goldberg
Max Goldberg started livingmaxwell.com in 2009. His blog focuses on his passion for organic food as a means to educate people about its importance and to inspire others to live a healthier lifestyle. Readers follow Max on his journey to eating organic after a long personal battle with high-stress, depression and self-destructive behavior, including his decision to quit Prozac, an antidepressant he had been taking for more than a decade.
Max’s organic food blog gives readers useful information about the best products, news, trends, and legislation, and provides interviews with the industry’s leading CEOs. Max is a former Wall Street investment banker whose goal is to inspire people to change their relationship with food.
The PBS | NPR Forum Network features Talking Heads Series
Forum Network creates new series of talks in celebration of Halloween on Sunday, October 31st.
Boston, MA – The PBS|NPR Forum Network has recently added a new series of curated talks around Halloween and Historical Events. The Talking Heads series is home to some of the Forum Network’s best public talks, lectures and stories about ghosts, witches, villains, scandal and mayhem.
Join Actresses Dee Wallace, Kristina Klebe, Danielle Harris, Scout Taylor, and Eileen Deitz discussing the filming process of Rob Zombie’s Halloween movies and why they won’t scream on command. Listen as the legendary Director George A. Romero discusses how he came to creating the film Night Of The Living Dead and why he thinks his “zombies” aren’t really zombies. Hear Director and Horror Novel Writer Guillermo del Toro discuss The Fall, the 2nd installment I the Strain Trilogy, a series about vampires taking over New York City.
Other notable discussions within the series cover historic events around the Salem Witch Trials, The Boston Strangler, the murder trial of Lizzie Borden, and what mummies tell us. The Man Who Wrote Frankenstein, a podcast included in the series, exposes us to the real author of Frankenstein, and how Mary Shelley became the noted author.
As you get ready for Halloween, we thought they may glean inspiration from the Polyvore community (7 million users +) who have created sets that let you be both frightening and fashionable. Take a look at the collection through the link below and HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
— Halloween Hung & Skinned Sweepstakes – This one is rare/special opportunity – but also gruesome/gory. FEARnet is giving people an opportunity to win a realistic life-size corpse to have delivered in time for Halloween setups and decoration. You can read more about it here and to see some images. The unique prop is estimated at $1700 and was designed by Robert Kurtzman’s Creature Corps. People can enter on the site through October 22nd.
— FEARnet’s Halloween Shriekstakes –FEARnet kicked off its favorite month with this year’s biggest sweepstakes. The prize pack honors several of October’s exciting happenings including the launch of AMC’s “Walking Dead” on Halloween, and the upcoming release of “Saw 3D” on October 29th with themed giveaways. The gift pack that promises to make FEARnet fans shriek includes:
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