Save Your Money - Save Your Planet - How to Create Costume Ideas Without Spending a Cent

Create A Costume At No Cost

Save your money, save your environment! Why not create your own costumes without spending a cent by using items and articles at home. You will be left feeling a great sense of satisfaction, whilst having loads of fun using your imagination, style and flair.

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Listen to all those comments that will have your admirers dazzled as they take in the pizzazz of your unique costume. There are a hundred things laying about the house which would make really great items for a costume so don't just limit yourself to looking in the wardrobe. Poke around cupboards, rifle through draws and look inside boxes.

Places to Find Great Ideas

To get your ideas flowing so that you can make a decision on which costume you would like to create, go online and visit a fancy dress store, where you will find an array of styles and colors with lots of tips and tricks to help you get started. This is a sure way to get those creative juices flowing.

Visit your child's bedroom and look at the color, the toys, and the items lying about. Open your mind to more possibilities and let ideas flow. A child's room is a treasure chest of ideas and in that treasure chest you are sure to find items that you could use for that next costume.

After you have visited a child's room, stop by your own room and check out your wardrobe. You are sure to find items of clothing that you no longer wear. Now that you have begun planning your costume you will have a better idea of which clothing would be suitable to pull apart and re-use as your latest costume design.

Some items of clothing that you may have long since stopped wearing, could easily transform into a gypsy skirt, Dracula cape, hippy vest or pirate pants. Without a doubt you will be saving heaps of money whilst recycling your clothes.

Tips And Tricks To Help You Out

Useful tip: Find a blanket box and fill it with anything which you may originally have thought to have thrown out. Many of these items can help to make the most

amazing costumes.

Start filling a blanket box or similar with the following items, and you will have the resources to make many an original costume in the future.

Old plastic or fabric flowers can be used to decorate the neckline of a dress or as a garland for the head.

Heavy curtains can serve as great fabric for a pirate's vest or even a medieval outfit.

Suede pillow cases with a V cut out of the top for the neckline and holes cut out of the either side can make an Indian (western) top.

Bath rugs, cut up and used for a Viking vest.

White sheets make the most amazing ghosts or mummies.

Mosquito netting is ideal for a gypsy skirt, genie pants or veil.

Hessian fabric makes great pants or a top for a scarecrow.

T. towels are ideal for headscarves for sheiks or shepherds.

Aluminum foil is also useful for anything to do with space or disco.

Vacuum pipe great for using as an attachment for a ghost busters backpack.

Coat hangers can be used as a basis for fairy wings.

Use straw to stuff a costume or use as hair for a scarecrow.

Headbands, pipe cleaners and foam balls make great lady beetle or bumble bee antennas.

Look around the house for small items, such as diamante buttons. They can make wonderful adornments to finish that special and unique costume off. Have you ever thought of getting a pair of old leggings and scrunching the bottoms with elastic? Add a few diamante buttons and now you have a jazzed up dance outfit. You have just created the Dancing Queen costume and it didn't cost you a cent!!

Glamour and Style With Color and Flair

It's amazing what you can do with a little planning and forethought. Here are some more suggestions to help you save your money.

Ornate clip on earrings have loads of uses and can adorn many a costume e.g. Accessorize a fabric choker, the neckline of a medieval dress; attach a cape to a roman toga or use as a jewel on an Indian or Arabian turban.

Old silver or gold belts (from the 70s) make up beautiful necklaces used by folk in medieval times.

Unique buttons can jazz up many a costume or adorn a neckline.

Colored beads help accessorize a 1920s flapper dress.

Buckles removed from belts are ideal for placing on leprechaun or elf shoes.

Curtain rings for attaching a 60s go-go skirt to a top.

Bottle corks to decorate a swagman's hat or cut in half and attached to a plain leather belt.

Why Not Have a Costume Making Party

To add to the fun, have you ever thought of having a costume making party? You could use this article as your guide. Gather your friend's together, throw a sausage on the bbq, or do a sausage sizzle if its cold, laugh away the afternoon and whip up some amazing costumes.

Save Your Money - Save Your Planet - How to Create Costume Ideas Without Spending a Cent

Friend Link : Have Fun In Fabulous Halloween Shoes! Elvira Halloween Costume : A Marvelous Costume

Landscape Design Plan Ideas - How to Use Color and Texture to Create Your Relaxing Retreat

Streams of water gently over the stone slab in the natural rock lichens reflecting pool below. Ponderosa Pines in the wind whispering in my head. The smell of wild shrub roses sweeten the air in summer. Ahh ... as a relief from the annoying guy who was at their heels all the way home from the store! Not to mention the employees who would not stop telling everyone about his ex all day, while seeing customers twice. And the dog, who escaped - once again - from enjoying her favorite noisethe neighborhood and the next $ 100 for sterling.

Sorry calling! A chance to relax and contact with nature ...

Silver Santa Hat

While there are many things to consider in the design, the rest (so that no matter how absurd the day was, you can regain your sanity, when at home!), One of the most important, but so often overlooked, The use of color and texture. It 'also one of the easiest ways to ensure all year round with a flourishGarden.

In addition to determining "the right plant for the right place" (how big the plant at the end, sun vs. shade and water requirements) know how to use color and texture is the magic word that will really make your landscape, that "withdrawal" of quality. Here are some things to consider:

1 Always include evergreen and "winter interest" systems - both in the landscape and the interest for years, and usability. Especially where I live, inhigh-lying south-west, is the key. The summer is mild, but winter also offer plenty of sunny days and climate warm enough outside, enjoy some 'much needed vitamin D. After a therapy garden during the colder months, even longer necessary and are filling the soul as the days grow shorter and dark and we're getting to a position outside the least. With a little 'research, it is possible by the abundance of evergreen or semi-evergreen were surprised. And please ... notlimited by juniper! It also does not evergreen "winter interest" offer - rust-colored leaves and red berries peeking through the snow, tufts of grass seed heads dry, peeling bark is a sign of the focus tree branches twisted. In Flagstaff, AZ, and many places in the south-west at an altitude near 5000 '(north of Fort Collins, Colorado, and east to Santa Fe, NM) to consider:

Western Birch * Corkscrew Willow Quaking Aspen Hawthorn Woods * Rosa Rugosa Rose * Apache Plume*Sagebrush *Rabbitbrush *Curl-leaf Mountain Mahogany *Cotoneaster *Oregon Grape Holly *Lavender Cotton *Plumbago *Creeping Barberry *Pineleaf Penstemon *Candytuft *Wild Strawberry *Cut-Leaf Daisy *Red-Leaf Bergenia *Mat Penstemon *Wall Germander *Woolly Thyme *Turkish Speedwell *Woolly Creeping Speedwell *Yarrow *Periwinkle *Leatherwood Male Fern *Switchgrass *Little Bluestem *Maiden Grass *Mexican Feather Grass *Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grass

2. Mix leaf types - shape, size, and color - It is a combination of trees (if you have room) to shrubs, grasses, vines and perennials, do it. Skip (other than to make fun planting pot as accent pieces - are expensive to replace every year, and useless, with all the other plants to choose from) the yearbooks. While many plants can look very similar texturally (you have already received some large plants, only to find that they lose something when combined?), There are really a lot if you're trying to make a pointthem out. The finely dissected leaves of Tall Yellow Yarrow contrast and combine beautifully with Red Shrub Rose - add in Blue Switch Grass and the effect is gorgeous. And don't forget the natives! Native plants not only are well-adapted and tend to be low-maintenance and low-water, but also offer unique features -- attributable to their hardiness -- such as the finely-cut, evergreen, blue foliage of Blue Rabbitbrush, fuzzy seed heads of Apache Plume that look great backlit against the sunset, and fern-like foliage of False Indigo.

3. Go beyond green and consider purple and gray/blue foliage combinations. This is one of my favorite color combinations because it can add so much vibrancy to the landscape and there are so many plants to choose from. While these two colors look great as a feature in the garden when paired together, they can also serve as background, highlighting flowering plants or interesting fern-like foliage or ornamental grasses. It's all about contrast! Consider these plants:

*Canada Red Chokecherry *Smoke Tree *Purpleleaf Plum *Japanese Maple *Globe Blue Spruce *Dwarf Arctic Willow *Blue Rabbitbrush *Fringed Sage *Blue Spruce Sedum *Partridge Feather *Silver Speedwell *Pussytoes *Serbian Yarrow *Husker Red Penstemon *Purple Maiden Grass *Blue Switchgrass *Japanese Blood Grass *Blue Avena Grass *Blue Fescue Grass

4. Extend color in your garden by choosing plants that flower at different times and are long-bloomers or repeat-bloomers. Okay, this part of planning your retreat can be a little daunting and tedious, I admit. But I'm really not a fan of those "spring" or "mid-summer" garden plans. Who wants to go to all of the trouble of creating a garden sanctuary only to have it really be interesting for a few months each year? To ensure you are getting good color throughout the flowering seasons, sketch out your landscape design plan on paper and then use colored overlays for spring, summer, and fall. Also, choose plants that flower for 4-6 weeks or repeat-bloom, such as:

*Butterfly Bush *Trumpet Vine *Blue Mist Spirea *Columbine *Yarrow *Winecups *Red Valerian *Bleeding Heart *Purple Coneflower *Cranesbill *Blanketflower *Coralbells *Lavender *Desert Four O'Clock *Tufted Evening Primrose *Scarlet Bugler Penstemon *Mexican Hat Coneflower *California Fuchsia *Coreopsis *Hummingbird Mint *Hollyhock

5. Don't forget the hardscaping and ornamental finishing touches! It's like deciding on your wall's paint color, hanging pictures, or decorating your table's centerpiece. These elements are so joyful to incorporate - whether you choose custom landscape architect designed features specific to your site, or simply have a fun shopping outing. Some will actually help form your garden's structure, or "bones," prior to any plantings, while others will be finishing touches that find their place nestled amongst rambling groundcovers. Lichen-covered boulder dry streams and limestone outcroppings, flat stone patios and meandering gravel pathways, carved wood benches and ornamental metal tables, architectural pots and garden ornaments, soothing water pools and cascading falls, rustic peeled-pole arbors and copper-embellished archways...there really is no limit! Use your imagination and explore unique combinations that suit your personality -- and have fun adding color and texture to create your relaxing retreat!

Landscape Design Plan Ideas - How to Use Color and Texture to Create Your Relaxing Retreat

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