Monday, August 19, 2024

Halloween Colors

Symbolism of Halloween Colors

Halloween is much more than a contrast between light (orange) and darkness (black). The colors of Halloween can present many things, and their symbolism changed through the centuries. Yet, one thing is for sure - no matter if you bet on the traditional yellow and brown (yes, yellow for corn and brown for the coming winter), or modern white and purple (yes, white replaced yellow and orange, and purple replaced brown and black), possibly adding a personal touch with pink, red, and blue - you always need a combination of at least two colors.

To create a story, you need conflict. To make a story with colors, you need contrast. To create a deeper and more meaningful story with colors, you need different shades of the same color in contrast with another color (or more colors, or more colors in various shades).

This is where the visual aid comes in handy. Colors are the strongest symbols of virtually every celebration. We simply spot them first. When they are used in the right context, with other symbols (for Halloween that would be pumpkins, witches, spiders, ghosts, etc.), your visual message starts working. If you want to design a package for a Halloween-related product or decorate a Halloween party for kids, a palette of Halloween colors will always come in handy. Instead of simply placing the strikes of specific colors, you can select a few specific symbols in the right color combinations, place them in the appropriate setting, and make a visually appealing storyboard.

This is what a basic set of Halloween colors looks like:

And this is a visual storyboard:


Check full article on Halloween Colors.

Making such infographics is relatively easy. You need a basic graphic tool (Inkscape in our case) and some clipart (taken from Pixabay, in our case). Clipart should be in vector format (SVG) to have maximal power of adjusting the sizes, but in most cases, raster format can be enough (just be careful - PNG format is better than JPG for overlapping as we did in the storyboard.

Such simple visual tools are very handy in the educational process and can often become viral on social media. Now run your graphic tools and create something similar (or better) on your own. Invest half an hour in graphic design and make a perfect Halloween!

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Vintage St. Patrick's Card

Enjoy Vintage St. Patrick's Day Postcards by Ellen Hattie Clapsaddle


Ellen H. Clapsaddle (1865-1934) created over one thousand picture postcards for sending on different, especially celebratory occasions. Many of them can be found online (they are Public Domain) and published by numerous shops, blogs, fan websites, and so on. Unfortunately, they are unsorted, often scanned in low quality, with damaged edges, uneven coloring, age-caused spots, ...

This is why I decided to collect a few dozen postcards by Clapsaddle and establish a dedicated website for this extremely popular and successful artist. This is an example of one of the cards:


To get this lovely image, I used next four free graphic tools:

  • Scrnly to save the image,
  • Inkscape to rotate it in a desired position,
  • FastStone Image Viever to crop it,
  • GIMP to correct the errors in the picture.

This is the address where a whole selection of Clapsaddle's Saint Patrick's Day postcards can be found:


As I already noted, all published images are Public Domain and you can use them for whatever you want. If you find them useful, tell your friends, share the address through your preferred social media, link it from your blog, pin it, etc.

Have a great day and celebrate wisely!

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Christmas Gifts For New Moms From Husband

Christmas gifts for new moms from husband should be the sweetest gifts ever. They just got a new baby and hubby will probably want to show all his love for their first Christmas together. Now they have another member of the family or they just really become a family.

You can find Sterling Silver Necklaces With Little Baby at Zazzle.com

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Friday, November 8, 2013

Thanksgiving Place Cards

Do you want to create your own Thanksgiving place cards? I was writing about Thanksgiving Turkey clipart that can be found on Openclipart the other day and today I want to show you how I used these clip art in my Zazzle store and created table cards for Thanksgiving.


Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Personalized Gifts For Mom

If you decided to buy personalized gifts for mom this year, you can find quite a lot of them at Zazzcle or Cafe Press. These are two online stores where you can get all kinds of gifts or even make one of your own.



You can find Little girl with umbrella jumbo mug at Zazzle.com

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Sunrise Sunset Calendar 2016

You can buy Sunrise Sunset Calendar 2016 in different stores online and you can make one yourself too if you want too. It's pretty simple. Go to Zazzle.com and there you can find a lot of beautiful calendars with all kinds of pictures, sunsets and sunrises are among them too.



You can find Large Print Calendar 2016 - Sunsets at Zazzle.com

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Cool Ideas For Christmas Gifts

Holidays will be here really quickly, so let's take a look at cool ideas for Christmas gifts. But first let's think about how many gifts are you going to buy and how much money are you willing to spend for them.



Image by PublicDomainPictures, Public Domain License, Pixabay

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Mother Christmas Gift Ideas

If you are looking for mother Christmas gift ideas, there is a great place to find them. Have you heard of Zazzle.com? There are all sorts of gifts and maybe you'll find something useful for you too.

Christmas Pillow - throw pillow with an image of red, silver and golden Christmas ormaments

You can find Christmas Pillow at Zazzle.com

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Christmas Gifts For Her

Which Christmas gifts for her to buy? What does she want? What does she like?

If you know the answer to these two question it will not be a problem to get her nice gift she'll like. But if you are not sure here are few suggestions.


Christmas gifts for her, girl in red with Santa her with a gift, wrapped in red with golden ribbon

 Image by PublicDomainPictures, Public Domain License, Pixabay

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Cheap Witch Costumes


You can find quite a lot of cheap witch costumes online. I checked at eBay and Amazon and here are few suggestions.


Let's take a look at eBay first - you can get a costume for adults for 8 dollars and more. I believe that's really cheap, but check it out - some dresses are new and some are already used.


Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Baby Homemade Halloween Costumes

Baby homemade Halloween costumes can be really fun and unique, but sometimes we just need few ideas first.

On this page you can find few ideas for costumes which you can easily make at home. That way you will not have to spend a lot of money for costume, because you can use stuff you already have at home. And you can make matching costume for yourself too.

If you want you can add some simple face painting for the baby and a bit more complicated for you. So, let's start, Halloween is waiting.


Image by NataPics, CC BY 2.0, Flickr

Monday, September 23, 2013

Cheap Wizard Of Oz Costumes

On this page you can find few ideas where to get cheap Wizard of Oz costumes. Let's first take a look at characters from the movie and costumes:
  • Dorothy
  • Glinda the Good Witch
  • Wicked Witch of East and Wicked Witch of West
  • Scarecrow
  • Tin Man.


 Image by Chip York Photography, CC BY 2.0, Flickr

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Superman Costume Replica

If you are Superman fan, you probably want to know where to get Superman costume replica. There are few variations of Superman outfits and looking for one can be real fun.

Superman outfits worn back in 1952 in TV series were pretty much the same as the ones in the first movie with Christopher Reeves.

Image by Tim Evanson, CC BY-SA 2.0, Flickr

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Smurfette Costume Ideas

If you are looking for Smurfette costume ideas, you can find few options what to wear on this page.

Smurfs are little blue creations in white outfits, only Papa Smurf wears red, and Smurfette is not an exception. She was made by Gargael to help him get the Smurfs - Gargamel wants to make gold with Smurfs. But things didn't go as planned and Smurfette became one of the Smurfs instead of Gargamel's little assistant.

Image by FirstPerson Shooter, CC BY 2.0, Flickr

Friday, September 20, 2013

Gargamel Costume For Adults

If you like Smurfs but you want something different for your Halloween costume, you can wear Gargamel costume for adults.

But I must admit, it's quite hard to get this costume in stores online. I checked at Amazon and kid's Gargamel costume is available and the same is with it on other sites, but there aren't any Gargamel costumes for adults.


Image by Joris Leermakers, CC BY-SA 2.0, Flickr

Thursday, September 19, 2013

Michelle Pfeiffer Catwoman Costume for Sale

Where to find Michelle Pfeiffer Catwoman costume for sale? Michelle Pfeiffer played in this costume in the 1992 movie Batman Returns. That was more than 20 years ago, but her costume looks very attractive even today and a lot of ladies would like to wear similar costume.

Image by Renato Ganoza, CC BY 2.0, Flickr

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Kim Kardashian Wonder Woman Costume Where To Find

Kim Kardashian Wonder Woman costume - where to find it? If you are looking for hot Wonder Woman costume, you probably want to know where to buy it. Is it available online too? And the answer is Yes, of course.



Image by 1derwoman, CC BY 2.0, Flickr 

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Best Wonder Woman Costume

You are probably wondering which is the best Wonder Woman costume, if you want to wear it on Halloween. I checked few costumes on Amazon so let's take a look at them.
You can choose between DC Comics Deluxe costume, Corset costume, T-shirt and sexy Superhero costume.

 Image by Pop Culture Geek, CC BY 2.0, Flickr

Friday, September 13, 2013

Halloween Costumes Ideas

Here you can find some Halloween costumes ideas and you can use them for Halloween party or costume party any other time of the year.

I love the time around Halloween because autumn is back with beautiful autumn colors. A lot of Halloween decorations are in these beautiful colors like pumpkins and table decorations.


Image by PublicDomainPictures, Public Domain License, Pixabay

Thursday, September 12, 2013

10 Interesting Facts about Superman

  • We know Superman since 1938, when we met him for the first time in Action Comics #1.
  • It's obvious that Superman is something special - he is celebrating his birthday on February 29th.
  • There was Superman Broadway Musical in 1966 called It's a Bird It's a Plane It's Superman.
  • One of the most known Superman was Christopher Reeve. He played Superman in the first four Superman movies and so did Margot Kidder as Lois Lane. In 1995  Christopher Reeve had very unfortunate accident when he was riding a horse - he felt off and has been paralysed from his neck down.

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Funny Last Minute Halloween Costumes

Are you in a hurry to go to a party and looking for funny last minute Halloween costumes? On this page you can find few funny and simple ideas how to make your costume really quickly.

Bonbons

Find few balloons in different colors, can be different sizes and shapes too, put them all together - tie them with a string around you and you'll have funny and cute Halloween costume - you can be M&M's, gummy bears or any other bonbons you can think of.

Grape

It's pretty similar to previous idea, but the balloons must be rounded, not too different size and in blue, purple or green color - only one, not all three at once - just like the real grape.

Under the balloons wear matching shirt and tights or pants, you can put on some make-up in matching color too and the Halloween party can begin.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Pictures of Real Witches

As Halloween is approaching and we'll soon see more and more witches flying around, I found few pictures of real witches.

Here are witch in the magic circle, Snow White and her stepmother and two pictures of Medusa, a monster from Greek mythology.

All these pictures are in Public Domain and can be found on Wikimedia Commons.



Image by John William Waterhouse,  Public domain,  Wikimedia Commons


Thursday, September 5, 2013

Superman and Lois Lane Pictures

If you are Superman fan, you probably like Superman and Lois Lane pictures too. We can find their pictures in different shapes and sizes like in comic books, posters, postcards, refrigerator magnets and so on. You can find some of their pictures on this page too.

Image by istolethetv,  CC BY 2.0, Flickr

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Pippi Longstocking Costume

Pippi Longstocking costume is really fun Halloween costume and anybody can wear it, babies, little kids, teenagers, moms, dads, even grandparents would look great in it. And why? Because we all have a little Pippi inside. We are curious, a bit of a rascal, but good at heart, especially if we wear Pippi's costume.



Image by juhansonin, CC BY 2.0, Flickr

Monday, September 2, 2013

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Simple Homemade Halloween Costume Ideas

You can find few simple homemade Halloween costume ideas on this page if you don't want to spend a lot of time and money  this Halloween. Costume I'm talking about are Kardashian sisters, octopus, brick, Kiss member, Superman and Lois Lane.

Let's not waste your time and start right away.

Kardashian sisters

This is simple group costume and can be really funny too if men are dressed like Kardashian sisters.
You just need wigs with long dark hair, sexy outfits and high heels shoes. And of course a lot of make-up. But put it on carefully and with a taste otherwise you'll look more like a drag queen instead of Kardashian sisters. But drag queen is not a bad idea either.

Image by The Guise Archives, CC BY 2.0, Flickr

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Kiss Halloween Costumes

You can find really a lot of Kiss Halloween costumes online, for instance at Kisscostumes, Amazon and many others too.

You can choose between all sorts costumes like costumes for adults - for men and women, costumes for children, sexy costumes, group costumes...

Gene Simmons' Axe Guitar, Public Domain License, Wikimedia Commons

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Gene Simmons Costume Ideas

Are you looking for Gene Simmons costume ideas? It's really easy to find Gene Simmons for everybody - for men, women or kids.

There are so many costumes and you can choose between costumes from different Kiss tours. Then there are different price ranges - some costumes are really affordable and some are a bit more expensive, they can cost few hundred dollars, but you'll be able to wear them for years.

The basics are always the same - black spandex or/and black leather costume, with spikes, vampire sleeves and black or silver platform boots.



Image by Tktt, Public Domain License, Wikimedia Commons


Tuesday, August 20, 2013

How to make Halloween party invitations

Are you having a party on Halloween and need invitations? Would you like to have unique but not too scary invitations?

I'll show you how to make Halloween party invitations with Inkscape, free computer drawing program. If you like to draw you are welcome to join me.