Deals & Steals – 10/16/09 (Halloween Edition)

Here’s the information I’ve come across about Halloween-related activities and events and want to pass along to you! 

Note: Many of these are not in my own words, but taken straight from the e-mail or press release that I received. I have re-worded or re-written where I thought it was necessary or helpful, but am not responsible for the content of these items or anything that may be posted on their sites.

In today’s tough economy, a great way to dress up and stay on budget is for children and students to reuse a previous costume.  Febreze Fabric Refresher is the perfect way to eliminate odors on and freshen up those festive outfits after being in storage for a year.

(I know that Febreze has worked well for me at Halloween as well as other times of year too – especially when pulling out fall and winter clothing I’ve had packed away for a year or more!)

For more information on Febreze find them on Twitter (@Febreze_Fresh), Facebook, or visit Febreze.com.  And check out the special offers available on their website as well!

Moms looking for healthy options at Halloween have a new treat to offer: milk in single-serve, shelf stable carton packaging that is a nutritious and delicious alternative to the usual Halloween candies. To help educate moms about the benefits of shelf stable milk in cartons, Tetra Pak has launched the ‘Trick or Treat Me’ social media campaign that provides games, information and coupons for shelf stable milk in cartons.

"Milk in single-serve, shelf-stable cartons has the same great taste. It’s just packaged and processed differently so that it doesn’t need refrigeration and can be taken on the go; making it the perfect healthy alternative for Halloween handouts." says Suley Muratoglu, Tetra Pak general manager, Dairy. "It’s milk that comes in the ‘box’ moms already know and trust."

The Trick or Treat Me campaign using Facebook, Twitter and a standalone micro site allows users to ‘trick’ or ‘treat’ their friends with Halloween-themed messages and rank the ’scariest’ twitterer in the world. Visitors to the site can also download coupons for Hershey’s and Organic Valley shelf stable milk in cartons to distribute at Halloween. Organic Valley and Hershey’s currently offer milk in single-serve shelf-stable cartons at retailers nationwide.

Tetra Pak’s shelf-stable cartons enable milk to retain its quality without refrigeration or preservatives for up to 12 months from production date. The shelf-stable advantage also provides a convenient way to take milk on the go when refrigeration isn’t available, giving moms an alternative option to add more calcium to their kid’s diets. Tetra Pak milk cartons are made mainly from paper, a renewable resource and are recyclable (please visit www.recyclecartons.com for more information).

At TrickorTreatMe.com, users can upload headshots of themselves, friends and family; and place their faces on the bodies of cartoon monsters, ready to trick or treat at the recipients’ doors. For both the Twitter and Facebook applications, users send either ‘tricks’ or ‘treats’ to their friends and followers. Twitter has a special Twick or Tweet Me competition where users can send ‘trick’ tweets to their friends and try to find the scariest twitterer in the world.

Each time these applications are shared, Tetra Pak – the carton manufacturer – makes a 10 cent donation to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). As part of its sustainability commitments, Tetra Pak collaborates with WWF on a number of initiatives globally, including WWF’s climate savers program.

Nickelodeon will have kids from tots to tweens on the edge of their seats with Halloween marathons of hit series and new chill-filled episodes of their favorite shows, beginning Friday, Oct. 23 through Saturday, Oct. 31. Additionally, Nickelodeon’s websites, Nick.com, NickJr.com, Neopets, Shockwave and Parents Connect will feature new Halloween-themed online content and games in the spirit of the haunted holiday.

Nickelodeon’s “Shriek Week” programming kicks off on Friday, Oct. 23, at 8:00 p.m. (ET/PT), with a Halloween premiere of The Troop. On Saturday, Oct. 24, the network will premiere spooky premieres of SpongeBob SquarePants at 10:00 a.m. and The Penguins of Madagascar at 10:30 a.m., and will cap off the night at 8:30 p.m. with a new fright-filled episode of True Jackson, VP. On Sunday, Oct. 25, Nickelodeon will premiere new half-hour Halloween specials of Back at the Barnyard at 11:00 a.m. and The Mighty B! at 11:30 a.m. All week long, Nickelodeon will encore the themed episodes and will also air a day-long marathon on Halloween.

Nickelodeon will treat preschoolers to a “Haunted Halloween Playdate” on Monday, Oct. 26, with a brand-new premieres of The Backyardigans at 8:30 a.m. and The Wonder Pets! at 10:30 a.m. (ET/PT). In addition, preschoolers can get ready for Halloween on Nick Jr. (Formerly NOGGIN), as the 24-hour commercial-free, educational preschool network airs “Fall into Autumn,” a 24-hour programming marathon of preschool favorites, filled with pumpkins, ghosts, and haunted houses on Sunday, Oct. 25, beginning at 6:00 a.m. (ET). The marathon will repeat on Halloween.

On Monday, Oct. 26, Nick at Nite will kick off a night of Halloween-themed programming with a brand-new Glenn Martin, DDS at 8:00 p.m.

Nicktoons, the 24-hour animation network, celebrates with “Ha Ha Halloween”from Monday, Oct. 26 through Friday, Oct. 30, treating kids to a daily dose of double-trouble with back-to-back episodes of Back at the Barnyard at 9:00 p.m. (ET) and an hour of The Penguins of Madagascar at 10:00 p.m. (ET). On Halloween, Nicktoons will air episodes all day filled with spooky humor from 6:00 a.m. – 12:00 a.m. (ET).

TeenNick’s (Formerly The N) "Now THAT’s Scary" programming will include marathons featuring the hair-raising chills and thrills of teendom from Monday, Oct. 26 to Thursday, Oct. 29, starting at 8:00 p.m. (ET) and continues Friday, Oct. 30 and Saturday, Oct. 31 with afternoon marathons starting at 3 p.m. (ET). The “nightmare-athons” will feature episodes of Degrassi: The Next Generation, Full House, What I Like About You, One on One and Sabrina, The Teenage Witch.

Kids can log-on to Nick.com’s “Shriektober” mini-site www.nick.com/shriek featuring Halloween-themed games, sneak peeks and videos. The site will also introduce two new games, “SpongeBob SquarePants: Halloween Horror, FrankenBob’s Quest” on Oct. 19, followed by “SpongeBob SquarePants: Halloween Horror, FrankenBob’s Quest Part 2” on Oct. 26. In both games, Bikini Bottom undergoes an eerie transformation and gamers must help FrankenBob find a way to restore the town before before the clock strikes midnight. Players will have to survive the horrors of the evil Bikini Bottom and its army of spooky doppelgangers, fight enemies with a creepy and monstrous arsenal, and complete seven ghastly levels filled with obstacles such as destructible floors and walls, haunted pirate galleons, and comatose whales. In addition, this month, kids can also participate in the “Fiend Creator,” based on Nicktoons’ series Making Fiends, where kids can build their own custom fiends.

Nickelodeon’s award-winning website NickJr.com will feature dozens of Halloween-themed games, kids activities, kids coloring pages, crafts, recipies for preschoolers and their parents to celebrate Halloween. On the site, preschoolers can dress up their favorite characters The Backyardigans, Dora, and Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!’s Walden in spooky and silly costumes. In addition, parents can get step-by-step instructions for making Halloween costumes, face painting, and pumpkin carving templates of preschool favorites Dora, Diego, The Backyardigans, Blue, Swiper, Wubbzy, and more.

Nickelodeon’s Neopets, the world’s leading youth community and online virtual world, treats kids this Halloween with online spooks and thrills. Through Oct. 31, fans can visit Edna’s Spooky Surprise where each day Neopia’s resident witch Edna will offer a choice of cauldrons of candy where players will earn a surprise trick or treat and play Halloween themed games like the popular Mutant Graveyard of Doom II.  Neopets multiplayer online game, Key Quest features a popular Spoo-Key theme with new Halloween prizes. In addition, on Halloween day, visitors to Neopia can search the virtual world for hidden tricks and treats. All month long, the NC Mall’s Halloween shop will feature a variety of Halloween-themed content on the site and for sale including ghoulish items to customize your Neopet and spooky costumes.

Shockwave the original casual gaming destination, will feature a Halloween destination featuring online and new downloadable Halloween-themed Games, and fright-filled versions of Shockwave classics include Inklink and Jigsaws.

Parents can also gear up for Halloween with ParentsConnect’s Spooktacular Halloween Countdown, all month the site will feature giveaways, creative tips, themed recipes and top costume ideas for kids of all ages.

Following is a full rundown of Nickelodeon’s extensive Halloween line-up:

Nickelodeon:

Friday, October 23

8:00 p.m. – The Troop “The Great Punkin”

• On Halloween night, The Troop has to capture the monsters after the security system breaks down and the monsters escape. Stockley, the do-it-yourselfer, goes off for parts to fix the grid and finds himself terrified by a ghost story.

Saturday, October 24

10:00 a.m. – SpongeBob SquarePants “Curse of Bikini Bottom”

• When SpongeBob and Patrick accidentally anger the Flying Dutchman, the ghost curses them – and turns them into ghosts!

10:30 a.m. – The Penguins of Madagascar “I was a Penguin Zombie/ Sting Operation”

• A botched mission lands Skipper in the ER with a broken flipper. When the bandaged and drugged Skipper escapes the hospital before he’s cured, his odd behavior leads the rest of the team to believe that he’s turned zombie. Skipper needs to prove to the team that he is not one of the undead before they resort to painful and dangerous zombie-stopping tactics.
• A hive of hornets has appeared at the zoo entrance, and they refuse to leave. The penguins must figure out a way to dispose of the hornets without being stung, before the first bus of children arrives at the zoo.

8:30 p.m. – True Jackson, VP “The Dance”

• When Ryan films a spooky movie with Jimmy in the hallways of Mad Style after hours, Oscar warns them about the ghost of Mad Style, an old receptionist who died 50 years ago who walks the halls at night and haunts the staff. Meanwhile, True and Amanda are charge of a photo shoot and can’t agree on who to cast as the model. And when Lulu’s boyfriend does not invite her to the Back to School dance, she suspects he is interested in someone else.

Sunday, October 25

11:00 a.m. – Back at the Barnyard “Halloween Special” (Half-hour Special)

• In a bid to collect the most Halloween candy and win a prize, Otis tops off the animals’ trick-or-treat candy with a handful of candy from a hallowed-out tree, that legend says belongs to masked psycho Hockey Mask Bob. As the animals enjoy their Halloween spoils back at the barn, the real Hockey Mask Bob shows up and starts kidnapping them one by one! Otis is left alone to face-off against the masked psycho.

11:30 a.m. – The Mighty B! #201A/B “Catatonic” (Half-hour Special)

• When a disappointed Bessie has to dress up as a cat, instead of a pirate, for Halloween, she ends up getting into character way more than she expects. Meanwhile, Happy can barely restrain himself from attacking her.

Monday, Oct. 26

8:30 a.m. – The Backyardigans “The Funnyman Boogeyman”

• Austin might look like the scariest boogieman around but he’s actually the funniest. Over the years, he has sharpened his hilarious routines and gags and all he needs now is an audience. So when two Spooky Hunters (Uniqua and Pablo), stop by his haunted house – Austin is ready to be discovered. What happens next is a madcap chase of near misses and plenty of silly jokes. Will Spooky Hunters Uniqua and Pablo get the boogieman they came for? And will Austin finally get the audience he’s been dreaming of? Musical Genre: Martinique Beguine

10:30 a.m. – The Wonder Pets! “Save the Bat!”

• The Wonder Pets travel to Transylvania to help a Baby Bat who is afraid of the dark.

Nick at Nite:

8:00 p.m. – Glenn Martin, DDS “Halloween Hangover”

• Jackie wants the kids to have the best Halloween ever, so she goes overboard decorating their RV and competes with the over-the-top decorations on the trailer next door. But the night is threatened when Glenn eats candy for the first time and immediately develops a sugar addiction. Meanwhile, Courtney is feeling threatened when she learns that Wendy has a crush on Conor.

With Halloween coming up, pingg.com has a great  Halloween Collection of invitations and cards. Also, they’ve announced the launch of their brand-new event stream, which pulls REAL-TIME Twitter feeds directly to your event Web page and gives guests up-to-the-minute status on event details and news.

With Halloween around the corner, everyone will be preparing with ghoulish decorations, festive parties, trick-or-treating and imaginative costumes.  Parents are bound to be snapping photos left and right, and the perfect ways to preserve and present this year’s Halloween memories are available at CVS/pharmacy Photo Center.  If you’re looking for inventive and affordable ideas, try out the Photo Center’s photo books and Picture Movie DVDs.

Photo books, available in-store and online, can hold up to 72 digital photos on a customizable layout.  They begin at only $5.99, and can be fashioned to display anything from the year’s best costumes to recipes for delicious Halloween treats.  They even make wonderful hostess gifts. Meanwhile, Kodak Picture Movie DVDs allow you to play out your pictures on computer or television screens as an animated slideshow, complete with seasonal music, for only $14.99.

Boo! Scare you?

Well, if that didn’t, do you know Halloween falls on a Saturday night this year?

That’s right! And it’s never too early to start planning your Halloween Spooktacular!  With a limited number of weekends leading up to Trick or Treating, you’ll want to get your invitations out as soon as possible to secure the best date for you & your ghostly guests!

MyPunchbowl.com, the leader in start-to-finish party planning, offers over 20 FREE Halloween party invitations templates ranging from creepy to classic that will immediately engage the recipient and will ultimately set the stage for your Monster Ball!

MyPunchbowl.com also has an amazing selection of Halloween party favors and decorations to carry your Halloween Theme from start to finish!

To get creative juices flowing for planning your Halloween Fright Fest, MyPunchbowl.com would like to share with you their recipe for Halloween Brew: Black Eyed Punch.

Halloween Brew: Black Eye Punch

Black Eye Punch is a terrific and frightful beverage to serve at your Halloween party.

To concoct this wicked brew you’ll need to combine:

2 cups of sugar

3 quarts of water with

1 13 ounce envelope of unsweetened grape soft drink mix

1 13 ounce envelope of unsweetened orange soft drink mix

Stir until all of the ingredients are completely dissolved.

Right before serving, add in 1 liter of ginger ale and several pieces of eyeball candy to float on top of the punch.

Enjoy!

For children everywhere, Halloween is all about having the funniest, spookiest, most outrageous costume! Slathering on stage makeup and making your hair stand on end is all part of the fun! However, things can get a little scary when you consider the fact that many products made for adults can include harsh chemicals, and no parent wants to subject their child to anything that could potentially harm them. Use Le Baby Hair Gel on your little one this Halloween to help create fun “spooky” looks!

Le Baby Hair Gel is made with natural ingredients. Its mild and safe formula was created specifically with young children in mind. So, whether you want to create a mad scientist, a perfect princess, or a tough looking pirate look this Halloween, Le Baby Hair Gel is the ultimate styling product. Depending on how much hold you’re looking for, just add more! Le Baby Hair Gel won’t leave hair stiff or sticky and It easily rinses out to help transform any spooky character back into a happy tiny tot just in time for bed.

Get ready, for the dawn of a new age! Manny, Sid, Diego and Ellie are back for more pre-hysterical hijinks when Ice Age 3 Dawn Of The Dinosaurs stomps onto a Three-Disc Combo Pack (Blu-ray, DVD and a Digital Copy) on October 27 from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment!

In the coolest Ice Age adventure yet, Manny and the herd discover a lost world of ferociously funny dinosaurs, including a cranky T. rex who’s got a score to settle with Sid! Meanwhile, Scrat goes nuts over the beautiful Scratte, but is she trying to win his heart – or steal his acorn?

The coolest animated comedy of the year, Ice Age 3 Dawn Of The Dinosaurs features hilarious performances from Ice Age veterans Ray Romano (“Everybody Loves Raymond”), John Leguizamo (The Happening), Denis Leary (“Rescue Me”), Queen Latifah (The Secret Life of Bees), Seann William Scott (Planet 51) and Josh Peck (“Drake & Josh”), along with newcomers Bill Hader (Forgetting Sarah Marshall), Kristen Wiig (“Saturday Night Live”), Jane Lynch (“Glee) and Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead).

The Ice Age 3 Dawn Of The Dinosaurs Three-Disc Combo Pack (Blu-ray, DVD and a Digital Copy*) provides hours of extra fun for the entire family including an Ice Age digital story book maker, commentary by director Carlos Saldanha, deleted scenes, making-of featurettes, two special Scrat shorts, a how-to-draw Scrat tutorial with the filmmakers and much more.  The Three-Disc set will be available for a suggested retail price of $39.99 U.S./$49.99 Canada. Additionally, the Ice Age 3 Dawn Of The Dinosaurs standard DVD will be available for $29.98 U.S./$43.48 Canada.

The Ice Age 3 Dawn Of The Dinosaurs “Scrat Pack” Double DVD Pack, another great value for moms and fun for kids, will also be available for a limited time only featuring an overload of special features focusing on the determined squirrel including three “Scrat” games exclusive to the disc.  The “Scrat Pack” will be available for a suggested retail price of $34.98 U.S./$45.98 Canada.

How to Create a Scrat (Ice Age 3) Costume

Ice Age when it was first released was a huge success do in large part to the comedy it provides. Scrat is instrumental in the comedy as he tries to bury his last acorn. Scrat is returning to the large screen in Ice Age Dawn of the Dinosaurs. If you have a child or just love the movies you might consider making your own Scrat costume. This costume will be great for costume parties or Halloween. It will take a bit of time to make so getting started now is reasonable even if it is for Halloween. Scrat is a sabre toothed squirrel, thus your costume will start with a Squirrel pattern. See below for the rest of the materials you will need.

Materials Needed:

• Squirrel pattern
• Sewing Machine
• Brown plush fabric
• Fake raccoon tail
• Bunting
• Dark brown fabric
• Ball cap
• Bailing wire or dowels
• Hot glue
• Teeth
• Large fake eyes

Instructions:

Step 1: Visit a craft store either online or in person. You need to find a few items that are not always the norm in costume making. The fabric can be found at a shop like Joann Fabrics or even Michaels. At the craft store you need to look for a white sharp, pointed object that can be Scrat’s teeth. Another option is visiting a museum that sells fake teeth.
Step 2: To begin you will need to create the body of the squirrel following the pattern. Bunting can help you get the right form, as you will need a little padding in the tummy and rear section. The jump suit should include covering for the feet and arms.
Step 3: To the body of Scrat you will sew on the fake raccoon tail. Or you can make your own tail with faux fur. It is up to you and your budget.
Step 4: The hard part will be the head of Scrat. We have elected to make a hat style hood rather than a hood that will cover your whole face. Take the ball cap, and strip the bill down to the width of the nose. You will use the ball cap to help reinforce the long mouth and nose. From the ball cap use the dowels to form the thinning nose. Cover the entire hat in the brown fabric. (To attach the dowels use a hot glue gun). At the end of the mouth attach brown fabric for the nose. This should be the darker brown.
Step 5: Once the nose is in place you can attach the teeth you have found for the costume.
Step 6: The last step is creating ears and the eyes of Scrat. The eyes need to be very large and round, then the ears can sit behind that.

Little boos and ghouls will be goblin up these frighteningly fun Halloween gifts! From plates to placemats and bookmarks, your favorite little monsters will find Olive Kids’ personalized Halloween products a real "treat".
They’re boo-tifully made and affordable for any Mummy. The only problem is "witch" ones to choose!
So, hop on your broomstick and fly over to Olive Kids and see their Halloween Gifts!

If you are looking for beautiful, colorful unique gifts for someone than go to Kinderbloom.  They specialize in adorable Pettiskirts, Tutus and Pillowcase Dresses.  Great for Halloween costumes, Fall, fun photo shoots or just for any special occasion. Order now for your upcoming special events!

Check their blog for deals and steals and follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

Witches, spiders, and bats, oh my! With Halloween just around the corner, you might already be thinking about creative projects to help make your house the best on the block for trick-or-treaters this year.

The premium Epson Artisan® 810 all-in-one is designed to handle all creative Halloween projects, such as printing spine-tingling Ultra Hi-Definition photos of your little critters in costumes, turning those photos into coloring book pages or personalized note paper, designing custom Halloween Mix CDs, or creating scary party invitations. You can even print photos of the coolest trick-or-treaters directly from a digital camera, mobile phone, USB Flash drive, or an Apple® iPhone.

With built-in Wi-Fi® and Ethernet networking, the Artisan 810 allows multiple users to print their Halloween projects and photos from anywhere in the house. In addition, its high-quality scanning and copying capabilities, full-featured fax, and 30-page Automatic Document Feeder increase productivity to allow you to spend more time planning your Halloween festivities.

You can also find several free templates for one-of-a-kind Halloween projects on Epson’s CreativeZone Web site, such as door decorations, luminaries and pennants.

There are so many exciting additions to JumpStart.com, it might be hard to keep up! Check out of all the new features the team has been working on for your little explorers…

• Petz: Adopt a furry little sidekick to tag along on adventures.
• Ridez (coming soon): Hop on a skateboard, a llama, or a pony and tour the world.
• Haunted House: Stop by our pumpkin-packed world for some festive Halloween fun.
• Buddyz (coming soon): Play and learn online with real-life friends.

Get your home ready for the spookiest time of the year with these kid-friendly projects.

• Boo-tiful Bats: Deck out your home with these simple and sparkly bats.
• Creepy Crunchies: Whip up some tasty Halloween-themed treats to share.

Summon your inner magician and wow your kids with these science experiments!

• Static Spooks: Conjure up a static force field and show off your new powers.
• Levitating Ice: Use magical green crystals to lift an ice cube with the touch of a string!

That’s it for this week, happy Friday and check back next week for more ‘Deals & Steals’!