Extraordinary is such a great word and a really great word for writing about campy pink flamingo lawn ornaments made over in the Halloween style.

Pink flamingos aren't just for Christmas, but they are so much fun wearing those Santa hats. Take the flamingo lawn ornament idea and bring it to Halloween. I found these Halloween flamingo lawn ornaments and had to share them for everyone to get the idea. What a lot of fun to turn something already fun into something less than normal and even more fun?

Do you usually decorate outside for Halloween? I have saved up most of my decorating for Christmas but Halloween is actually the more fun holiday. Not so much family and traditions are expected for Halloween. So there is opportunity for change, creativity and odd new ideas. Take the chance and do something unusual, after all, unusual is part of the day for Halloween.

Keep Things Simple with a Few Creepy Flamingos on your Front Yard

Start with some skeleton, zombie or ghoulish looking flamingos and work your way along to adding ghosts made from old sheets (you can pick up old sheets pretty cheap at the thrift store). Get markers, colours like red will show up well, and draw on your ghosts. Give them faces, of course, but carry on from there. Give them gore and a violent past drawn all over them. Hang your ghosts from trees or anything else that gives them some chance to catch a breeze outside.

Use old Halloween costumes which you can recycle from your own family or pick up cheap at thrift stores and dollar stores. An old costume, like a witch, vampire, and Frankenstein monster can be held up with clothes hangers and displayed pinned together to look like someone is wearing the outfit. Pin a hat at the top of the main outfit, add gloves and slippers (boots would be too heavy) at the bottom. If you have a few masks stick them with the hat to look like a face. Of course, you don't need to stick with the traditional Halloween characters, recycle Princess costumes, fairies, farm animals and anything else you find and get creative ideas for.

The Halloween lawn flamingos are just a great place to start your whole Halloween outside empire. Grow it with new ideas each year. Build a cemetery, turn the whole thing into a Halloween maze for trick-or-treaters to walk through before they can get to your door.

Or, keep things simple with a few flamingos - enough to show you have the Halloween spirit and a sense of humour.

Halloween is a great time to play with things, especially anything you can share and scare others with. Keep in mind, the public includes small children (unless you have a way to control access and block the view) so don't get too scary for the little people who will be out there too.

Wicked, But Only in a Good Way

I always wanted to be a Witch for Halloween. It was the one costume I never did wear in all my Halloween years. I finally did, as an adult handing out candy to children trick-or-treating at my sister's house. I had tried to make spending the night at the door not seem so bad. So I bought a witch hat from a department store the day of Halloween.

It was kind of picked over but that just added to it's charm I decided. I wore a long black skirt (it was the same skirt I wore for my winter wedding) and a sort of Halloween looking shirt. So that was my Witch costume after all those years of wanting to be a Halloween Witch.

I looked okay but nothing as I had always imagined it. Not the floor sweeping black gown, the pointed hat and fabulous, yet creepy shoes. No history or mystery to that costume.

We always made or created our own costumes when I was a young trick-or-treater. We never bought an entire, pre-made, costume. Instead we bought the odd accessory and created costumes from patterns, fabric and old clothes. We were the kids who carried around pillow cases for our candy hoard - they worked great but got kind of heavy. Halloween costumes were fun because we could be creative and become something unique. Sure we did the standard things like angels and vagabonds but I won an award at the Community Centre for my hula girl costume with a real grass skirt.

Start with the Witch Hat

I especially like the hats with a veil, feathers and other extras. They look like an old fashioned hat, vintage witch. I also like colours other than black. My perfect Witch hat would be either green or purple with a good quality veil in layers. I'd have flowers around the brim and little jeweled spiders hanging from the veil.

Every Witch Needs a Stylish Gown

The Witch dress I would like would be long, flowing and old fashioned. An historical gown, something kind of stylish but maybe a touch of something unique, like polka dots. No need for a Witch costume to be all black, dark and serious after all.

The Witch Shoes and Cloak Too

I'd want shoes I could walk in. Some of the costume shops have a cover for your own shoes. This is practical but... shoe covers don't seem quite the thing for a fabulously styled Witch.

Shopping for a Sorceress

I like to look at the Witch costumes and accessories online each Halloween. Just for fun.

Window shopping is a great way to shop without the horror of charging up your credit card (but sadly lacking the delivery of boxes with presents you sent yourself later).

Quick and Simple Costumes for Men

Men don't always want to dress up for Halloween. My brother stopped dressing up once he became a teenager but he would still take the younger siblings out to trick-or-treat - just not wearing a costume himself. Now and then he will do something for Halloween like buying candy for his wife to hand out at the door.

I think he still would like to dress up and have fun but, he thinks it is not quite manly. I think he would like to wear something fun, if he didn't think it would spoil his image as a tough guy. So, I'm putting together ideas for simple costumes he might wear and not feel silly in.

Once I got looking I found some good options. All of them one item wonders - just one thing (T-shirt, tie, glasses, etc) and he could have a whole costume with whatever he happened to be wearing or wanted to pull out of his closet. He does have suits from his days working in an office. He also has loads of working clothes from his work on home renovations and landscaping now. So, he is not short at all on clothing to wear, stuff that could work for Halloween. He just needs the inspiration and the personal shopper to give him some great options and ideas.

Costume Ideas for Men:

Before you step out decide whether or not you want to be seen in the costume you have created. If not, start over but don't give up.

• Cowboy
• Space alien
• Super hero
• Hippie
• Old man
• Tycoon
• Police officer
• Handyman
• Angel
• Vampire
• Sports figure
• Monster
• Zombie
• Ghost
• Trucker
• Doctor
• Surfer
• Waiter
• Statue
• Vagabond
• Farmer
• Nerd
• Knight
• King
• Wizard
• Frankenstein
• Mad scientist
• Mad hatter
• Lawyer
• Politician
• Hockey player
• Mechanic
• Poker player
• Lion tamer
• Thief

Why isn't there a Halloween tree? I love the Christmas tree, it's one of my favourite Christmas things. So, why not a tree just for Halloween?

I think it would be a great way to decorate for Halloween. the tree could be a real big size, the sort to stand in the room at Christmas, or the size of a centrepiece which you could sit on the table. You could also have the tree in the doorway for trick-or-treaters to see. I love to have my tree sitting in the middle of the room because it shows up in the window to everyone outside.

What kind of tree would you like for Halloween?

The tree could be decorated with humour, with spookiness or you may be Pagan and want a spiritual theme. Each style would have different decorations/ ornaments and even a different style of tree.

A traditional tree would be something natural looking, something you could see outside your window but with extras all on one tree. Most likely the tree would be bare branches, due to the season of Autumn when trees are loosing their leaves. On the bare branches you could have birds, crows and ravens being great and traditional choices. Add little jack-o-lanterns as ornaments.

A creepy tree could have a bloodier look with zombies, ghouls, demons and body parts. Anything gross, horrifying and gruesome which you can fit onto the tree would work for a really frightening Halloween tree.

Trees could have a funny theme with googly eyes. You could also use decorations from other holidays and give them a Halloween make over. Like turning Santa Claus into a vampire, the Easter bunny into a skeleton and a leprechaun into a rabid zombie.

I'd put lights on the tree too. Halloween colours would be orange and black but the black wouldn't show very much. You could switch it out to orange and red for a scarier look or orange and white for a prettier tree.

Last of all - a tree topper. This tree doesn't have one but you could easily add something.

Any of these trees from Amazon could be great as a Halloween tree. Have fun adding your own finishing touches to give the Halloween tree your personal touch.

Some day there will be a traditional Halloween tree. The idea just has to catch on. Meanwhile I found four which you can choose from on Amazon. Which would you pick? Each has it's own style. I'd like one tree with something from each of these. Of them all, I think I would choose the one with the curved, Gothic-looking branches. I like that touch of romance and traditional in mostly everything. I'm not the sort to enjoy horror in my Halloween.

My favourite thing about family holidays has always been the family getting together and baking. Most holidays we made pies, bread/ rolls and the odd new-fangled concept which seemed to always work out, some how. Those days are a bit lost now as we move from the old generation into the new. But, I still like holiday baking and Halloween is one of my favourite three holidays. I like these gingerbread men because they bring something new to an old Christmas tradition and something new to Halloween. Halloween gingerbread men are a good combination. Plus, tasty treats too.

Of course, most of these are based on the zombie idea. It's so trendy these days with zombie walks popping up in so many places. Gingerbread men (gingerbread people) in the zombie style tend to come with parts missing, gore and so on. Of course, you could just eat the odd leg - but that's a bit too much like double dipping. Frowned upon.

Then there's the skeleton gingerbread guy. Will you pick out the bones first or risk just crunching them between your teeth, in real gruesome Halloween style?

Why not continue on with all the standard Halloween characters in gingerbread, the ghost, the witch, the vampire, the Frankenstein monster and the mummy too. You can get tin, some snips and create your own cookie cutter designs. If you really want to go all out with the idea of gingerbread characters for Halloween.

Decorating the gingerbread men would be a bit challenging. I wouldn't like to use a lot of black icing so I'd get creative and turn them into colourful characters. Bring in more green and orange, black isn't the only traditional Halloween colour. Why should cookies be so darkly Gothic?

Pick a recipe for a basic or simple sugar cookie. These are the type which you can roll out, cut and decorate. Not every recipe will be roller friendly so if you try a new recipe read it all the way through first. Some may need refrigeration, some may be crispy and likely to break and snap once they are baked. Martha Stewart has a basic sugar cookie recipe, but if you have a family favourite stick with that!

Ghastly, spooky, creepy ideas in cookie cutting (and decorating) for Halloween.

Decorating cookies is a great way to make your best creative notions as edible creations. Use a simple cookie recipe, cut out the cookie shapes, decorate them, bake them and share them with family, friends and whoever wears the best costume.