Campground Halloween Costumes and Festivities

Are you and your family planning on spending Halloween away from home? Maybe you're taking a camping trip over Halloween weekend? If so, then you're in for a treat.  Many campgrounds have trick-or-treating, haunted houses, haunted walks, special parties, and more. You can even carve pumpkins to make your campsite more festive!

One of the most important aspects of Halloween is putting together your costume. Assembling your own costume is one really fun part of Halloween preparations and festivities. With all of the costumes sold in stores, homemade costumes are becoming less common. Creating your own original costume is a fantastic way to really get into the spirit of Halloween.

There are a few simple ways to get a costume together. Step one is to come up with and idea. There are no limits on what you can imagine.  Your ideas can be scary, heroic, dramatic, kooky -- whatever interests you the most. You need only remember that your idea needs to be one that is actually possible to make and it also needs to be wearable.

Thrift stores are great places to get pieces for your costume. They often have items that are specifically saved for Halloween. If you can sew, you can choose your fabric and pattern at a fabric store. Often, you will find a fabulous selection of Halloween costumes. You can also use your access to nature to create parts of your costume. Shells and flowers make terrific accessories.

Shells make a creative and artistic addition to princess costumes. If you collect plenty of beautiful shells they can be strung into a necklace or even attached to the collar of a dress. Flowers make nice hair ornaments.

If you want a mask, you can use leaves. All you need is to get a simple mask, which can be bought at most stores around Halloween, glue and the leaves you want to use. Branches and sticks can be used as walking sticks, and if you are so inclined and have the right costume, you can create and string your own bow and arrows. Mud can also be a good part of a costume, should you need to look dirty, or if you just want to use it like face paint.

While you are camping, you have the chance to meet lots of different people. Maybe the new people will help you come up great costume ideas. If your campground doesn't already have planned Halloween festivities you can take charge and plan some for everyone who wants to participate. You could even organize a costume contest so you can celebrate and showcase all of the creative Halloween costumes of your fellow campers.

The costume is only one part of the whole Halloween celebration. You should also figure out how to make your evening as spooky fun as possible. Ghost stories are a great way to add a little scare to your night. Sharing ghost stories over the campfire is always fun -- just make sure your stories suit the audience. After everyone has spent the evening trick-or-treating, enjoying the jack-o lanterns and participating in all of the Halloween festivities you can find, be prepared with your best ghost story to share with you newfound friends.

Photography for Kids

As a child I remember getting out our old boxes of photographs and carefully looking at each picture. They told stories of past adventures, they brought back long forgotten memories and they told me the stories of family members that had lived before my time. I loved to look through these photos, remembering and imagining, each photo was precious and unique, and each one was special to me. Even now I love to look at my pictures, the pictures I took while traveling in Europe or visiting family in the desert of Arizona, and the old pictures my grandfather took during the Second World War. There is more to the photographs than just looking at them though, there is also the taking of the pictures. You can choose which type of camera you want to use, you can frame each shot carefully, you can manipulate the light, and you can point and click without thought. Photography is more than just a door to the past it is an art.

When you travel, make sure that you bring along your camera. The photographs you take will bring back the memories of the places you visit. When you have a birthday party or have an adventure near to home with your friends, bring your camera. At the time, you may not see that these photographs will be treasures later, but as you grow older you will be happy to have the photographs from your childhood. Take pictures of the people you love, take pictures when you are being silly, when someone else is being silly, and save these photos as mementos.

There are many different types of cameras to choose from. Disposable cameras are perfect for canoeing and boating trips.  If you lose your camera or if it gets wet, you won’t be heartbroken the way you would if your good camera were damaged.  Digital cameras allow you to take as many shots as you want without worrying about the cost of film or developing. It is especially handy to have a digital camera when you travel, since you can make sure the pictures turn out in a way that is most appealing. Film cameras still have their place; but today they’re used more by serious artists and photographers who are looking for a particular affect. 

While I was in high school, I had the chance to take a photography class. I learned about cameras, lighting, framing, how to develop film, and how to print the photographs. After I learned to use my camera, I started to see the world a little differently. I began to see how to create a piece of art from an ordinary situation. Reflections and shadows can dramatically alter a shot. Learning the art of photography helps you to look at the details of nature and gives you a deeper appreciation for natural beauty.

Photography is partly art, partly science, and partly your own ingenuity. You can create your own masterpieces and you can use photography as a way to embrace and learn about nature. With a camera, you can document all of your adventures and travels and make gifts for others.

Try looking at things in new ways, looking at the underside of a flower, for instance, or looking sideways at things you normally see from the front. If you take the time to photograph things in new ways, you will begin to experience these things afresh. Photography can be a way to learn, a way to stretch your artistic inclinations and a way to preserve your favorite memories for all time.

Art with Leaves

 The fall is a great time to admire nature. You can add to the beauty of fall by creating your own piece of leaf art from fallen autumn leaves. The trees that lose their leaves in the fall are called deciduous trees, and the changing color and dropping of these leaves is part of these trees' yearly cycle. Have you ever stopped to really look at one of these leaves? Each one is interesting and unique. These leaves can inspire all sorts of beautiful art.

A classic form of art you can try that uses leaves is creating a collection of pressed leaves. When you find a nice specimen of a leaf, collect it. Then, when you get home, smooth it out and place it in between two pages in the middle of the largest book you can find. If you leave your leaves in the book for a while they will dry out and become perfectly flat. During your time collecting leaves, should you discover that you enjoy pressing leaves, then you can make or purchase a flower press.

Once your leaves are dry, stick them into a scrapbook. You can start a great leaf collection and you can add leaves to your collection from every place you travel. You can then identify each leaf in your collection. You can also decoratively label the leaves in your collection.

The budding drawing enthusiast can learn to sketch nature, using leaves as studies. When you find a fascinating leaf, you can draw a simple study of its form and composition. The falling leaves of autumn also present a great opportunity to do paintings or pastels of scenes from nature. Photographers also find great inspiration in the colors and form of the fall leaves.

Another fun way to create art from leaves is to make leaf prints. When you find a special leaf you can use it as a sort of stamp. Get a plate of paint, dip your leaf into the paint, and then carefully place the paint-covered leaf onto your paper. If you want a perfect print of the leaf, make sure it doesn't smear. If you want a more abstract painting you can smear the leaf around on the paper.

Leaf art is a great way to create new and different art during the autumn. As each leaf is unique, so is each creation made with that leaf. Your leaf art will be a mix of your individuality and your leaf's individuality.

Planning a Day at the Races

Kids love to race. They love to run, bike or even boat. Planning a day at the races is a great way to bring together a group of kids. Organizing any kind of race is a great way to spend some quality time with your children. You will all have a chance to let loose some of your natural creativity, let out excess energy, and find something to turn a regular day into a day to remember forever.

You can plan racing events for a special occasion or just a regular day. Since any type of race is competitive, you should try to find a way to celebrate everyone who participates, not just those who come in first. To do this you can find some small prize to give to everyone. The children can all work together to make prize ribbons. All you need for this are a few basic craft supplies: colorful construction paper, markers, glue, and kid's scissors. This will give the kids a chance to create something for their fellow racers. If you want to do something a little more formal you could get a different polished rock for every participant. Younger kids especially like these types of treasures.

You also need to figure out which type of races you would like to organize. Foot races are great since children of all ages love to run. You could organize a three-legged race if you have an even number of racers and some rope. An egg race is a classic race, which you can organize in a few different ways. If you have a stream nearby, you can fold paper boats and race them down the stream.

To begin, determine an appropriate spot to hold the race. The spot needs to have enough space for all the racers to run comfortably, and the course needs to be long enough. Start by drawing a starting line with some chalk. You can either use string or some type of paper ribbon to mark the finish line. Line the children up at the starting line, sound the start and cheer on the racers as loudly as you can.

If you want to organize an egg race you will need a spoon and egg for every participant. Have the children line up at the starting line and hold out their spoons, then place an egg on each spoon. The object of an egg race is to reach the finish line without dropping your egg as you run. You can also set up the egg race by designating a leader who leads the group around however they choose. The followers must hop on one foot while balancing their eggs, going wherever the leader decides to go. When a participant puts down their second foot or drops the egg they are out until the next round.

Organizing a race day is a great way to have an exciting day with your kids. You will all have fun putting together the racetrack, any decorations you want and all the prizes you will be giving away. Having a race is a great way to participate in some friendly competition in which everyone has fun and everyone is a winner.