Sexy Pirate Captain Swashbuckler Halloween Costume by Leg avenue

Youve spent years in perfecting your diorama or railroad layout but the pictures you take do not do it justice. To your minds eye the figures look real, the buildings are correctly scaled and the detail realistic. But the pictures you take make the building look like toys, the shrubbery like plastic and the mood unrealistic. Most difficult are layouts in N (160-1) or Z (220 - 1) scale or dioramas smaller than 87 - 1 scale.

There are three types of pictures you can take: showing the whole diorama, showing a perspective of the diorama without the intrusion of peripherals (room walls, etc.), and cropped close ups of the detail. The most realistic is the perspective shot which shows nothing but the diorama. In order to depict this properly, you must cut off some portion of the scene.

Assuming the diorama is on a table, position your camera on a sturdy tripod a few inches above the nearest corner so as not to include the sides of the diorama. Set the lens manually at the smallest F stop (which could be F11, F16 or F32). Set the camera at aperture priority (A) so that the exposure will be automatic. A point and shoot camera can be used but turn off the flash. Make sure the top of the picture in the finder includes only the background and none of the room walls. If a background is not a part of your diorama, buy a poster board in a sky blue and tack it behind the diorama as close as possible.

The flash on the camera is not a good source of light for this type of picture. The source is too wide and tall, the fall off is a dead give away and makes the diorama look false. What is needed is a point source of light. You may use the light from a slide projector (without a slide) or a 150 watt clear incandescent bulb. Place the source as far as possible from the diorama, ideally eight times the width of the diorama and about thirty degrees above the level surface and to the side. The photograph must be made in a shuttered dark room or at night so that the only source of light is the bulb. There will be enough scattered light in the room to light up the shadows sufficiently. If the bulb source is close to the wall or ceiling, cover the areas near the bulb with black cardboard so that there will be no reflected light from around the bulb.

The purpose of this configuration is to provide normal looking, sharp shadows in your diorama picture that will simulate sunshine. Set the camera color balance for incandescent light and later adjust the image file for a sunlight look. Additional light blue poster boards can be placed above near the ceiling and behind the diorama to reflect some blue tinted light into the shadows. Set the ISO at the smallest number (50 or 80 ISO) for the most detail. Auto focus may be used but manual focusing on an item one third the distance from the near edge of the diorama will ensure good focus throughout. Experiment with slightly different angles and foreground interest. The lower you can get to the diorama, the more realistic the picture. Overhead shots tend to look like shots taken from an airplane or helicopter while low angle shots simulate a raised but ground level perspective. A wide angle lens is preferred for the further object to appear far away (scale wise) while a normal lens focal length will compress the distance somewhat. Once your technique is down pat, future photographs of train layouts and diorama will be a cinch.

About the Author: A retired portrait and wedding photographer, I enjoy writing , how to articles, helpful articles on photography and many other subjects. My hobbies include quartet singing, shop, bicycling and photography. Please visit my web site at photoartbyken.com [Articles, Digital Art, Poetry, Original sheet music.]

halloween kids

Sexy Adult Womens Halloween Costumes Naughty Catholic School Girl Schoolgirl Costume Theme Party Outfit

Stay after school in this special school girl costume!

This Item Includes Cropped Shirt, Skirt

Pump That Music. What would a party be without music? Now everyone's idea of party music can be different. Maybe your crowd likes pop -- or techno music. But for a Halloween party you'll want to throw in some classic Halloween favorites. Include the music from popular Halloween movies like Scream or even Friday the 13th. Don't forget the Monster Mash -- always a popular favorite. Organize your music ahead of time so you just push and play. Be sure to ask friends to bring along their favorites too so everyone has a chance to listen to their favorite type of music at the Halloween party.

Add Some Special Effects. No Halloween party would be complete without some special effects. You could add some cobwebs in the corners, complete with creepy spiders. Or get into the spooky fog by using some dry ice -- very easy for even beginners to use. There are many Halloween special effects you can purchase that you simply plug in and turn on that are lots of fun. Many are activated by someone walking past them. Check out your local party center for ideas.

Plan a Menu Suited for the Day. Every party needs good food and this includes a Halloween party. If your party is more casual, you could even do something like take out pizza and bowls of yummy snacks in strategic places. Or if your party is more fancy, try for something that really gets attention. The key to Halloween party food is to plan variety and to also be sure there is enough food for everyone to enjoy.

Include Spooky Activities. A Halloween party is the perfect time to tell ghost stories or even to hold a seance. Another fun idea is to have someone give tarot card readings. Or if you plan it right, you can do all three activities at your party! This would be a unique party that everyone would be sure to remember. Halloween is a time when many people are open to trying something a little unique and spooky that they might otherwise not do -- like a seance or a tarot card reading.

Tell Everyone to Dress Up. Who could imagine a Halloween party if people come in regular clothes? Halloween parties are simply meant to be costume parties -- each and every one of them. It can be fun to have a costume contest at your party -- or even a theme for your costumes like couples. There are lots of things that people can do with their costumes. http://www.pumpkinkits.com offers you all the ideas that you need for the best Halloween party ever - prepare to shock your friends!

haloween

Sexy 3Pc Proper Nurse Uniform Halloween Costume by Leg avenue

Bachelorette party ideas can be overwhelming and you need to decide which theme you wish to go with and make the best out of it. The first thing to consider is the preference of the bride to be. You want to make her last night as a single woman pleasurable and worthwhile. A bachelorette party is therefore very vital at least to bid farewell to the girl who is about to have a different status. The first of many bachelorette party ideas is to spend a day or even a night at a spa. Whichever the location, having relaxed time with your girlfriends is invaluable. At the spa, you can have facials, mud baths, pedicures, massages, saunas, manicures and others. You are going to be spoilt and you will enjoy every minute of it.

Makeovers are great bachelorette party ideas because the most important thing for girls is to look and feel beautiful and what a better time than now when a wedding is near. You can have a professional make up artist come to the party and give you the best looks you can possibly have. Another party idea that has a lot of popularity is doing some pottery at a local pottery studio. The girls will have so much while undertaking this practical activity. Make the pottery for the bride to be after inquiring what kind she would prefer in her new home. You therefore do not have to be limited by ideas because you can break the norm and go all out to have fun and make the bachelorette party as superior as possible.

You can also have sporty bachelorette party ideas and the following idea will have the bride to be entertained. It involves spending the day at a baseball field with friends. Your friends will enjoy hot dogs, pop corn, ice cream, cotton candy and a variety of drinks. Another idea that you can never go wrong with is going shopping. You can either do it in your home town or you can go to other places for a greater and bigger experience. While shopping, you can undertake several activities like visiting the local restaurants of the states you choose to visit and experiencing their culture. A favorite destination to visit is Las Vegas where you know you will not be disappointed. From the food to casinos, the party will surely not end.

Other great bachelorette party ideas include having a pajama party. The Bride to be and her girlfriends can have an awesome night in pajamas. This does not mean they go to bed because the party has just began. In the party, there will be activities like watching a great selection of movies, games, showering of party favors not to forget great food and drinks. There will be decorations just like a real party. Girls share a lot until they fall asleep and these experience will bring back past experiences like sleep overs. Ideas will continue to get better for bachelorette parties. They will live to remember the night with nostalgia.

Peter Gitundu is a Web Administrator and Has Been Researching and Reporting on Party Ideas for Years. For More Information on Bachelorette Party Ideas, Visit His Site at BACHELORETTE PARTY IDEAS You Can Also Post Your Views About Bachelorette Party Ideas On My Blog Here BACHELORETTE PARTY IDEAS

halloween costume ideas

Little Doctor Infant Toddler Halloween Costume

Get them ready for a bright future! Brand New, Little Doctor Infant and Toddler Costume. Includes: Scrubs, Cap, Lab Coat, Stethoscope and Doctor Bag. Available in Infant and Toddler sizes. Goes great with any other nurse or doctor costumes for adults and children!
Customer Review: Costume
I am a bit disappointed in the quality of the costume. The seams are frayed on the jacket, top, and pants. There is a cut into the jacket which looks like a mis-stitching. The hat is missing the white stripe around it, but it has a tie to keep it on. I also was unaware that the medical equipment is of a plastic material that is poor quality. However, because of how my son grows so quickly, we will get the only one-time halloween use out of this costume.

Although there really is nothing to fear about bats, and they don't really attack people to drink their blood nor are they blind, it's fun to let your imagination run wild, especially around Halloween. The days are growing shorter, the air is crisp, and the leaves are dying-the perfect conditions to let your kids go batty. This year, forget the ghosts and witches and take a cue from Edgar Allan Poe and plan your Halloween party around these scary black mammals. Find everything you need for a "horror-ble" party that will drive your guests batty, from invitations, to crafts, to games.

Invitations

• Use a white paint pen to write party details on black bat-shaped cut-outs. Glue onto orange craft paper and send out to guests.
• Decorations
• Set the mood for your party by hanging inverted bats made out of black construction paper from trees or the entrance to your house
• Trim the front door with bat decals or cut-outs. Add a banner with a scary saying.
• Carve bat shapes into pumpkins and display on the front porch and inside the house. For an extra ghoulish effect, light candles and place inside the pumpkins.
• Using black and orange ribbon, hang bat shapes from the ceiling along with black and orange balloons.
• Make a bat banner out of construction paper
• For your a table center decoration paint a large, bare tree branch black and attaching black construction paper or plastic bats to it.
• Spread bat-shaped confetti on tabletops and counters.

Bat Hunt Game

Hide some toy bats or construction paper bats around the house inside or outside before guest arrive. Give each guest a paper bag and a flashlight and turn off the lights or go outside. Have guests search for the hidden bats. The person who finds the most bats is the winner. Give a small prize to the winner if desired. (Variation: You could have one special bat for guests to find, and the person who finds that bat gets a prize too.)

Owl and Bats Game

You will need either some plastic or rubber bats. There should be one less bat than the number of players. For example, if you have 6 players, use 5 bats. Before the game, color or paint a spot on the bottom of each bat. Have children sit in a circle. Put the bats, marks facing down, on the floor in the middle of the circle. Have children choose one bat. The child without the bat is the "owl." Have the "owl" sit in the middle of the circle. The "owl" points to one child and tries to guess the color of the spot on that child's bat. If the "owl" guesses the correct color, the child with the bat runs around the circle and the "owl" tries to catch him/her before he/she sits down at his/her spot again. If the "owl" catches the child with the bat, he/she will be a bat again. If not, the "bat" takes a turn to be the "owl."

Party Favors

Visit your local party store or discount store, looking for inexpensive bat-related novelties such as key chains, plastic toys, jewelry, etc.

Bat Cookie Decorating Activity/Snack

Let children decorate their own bat-shaped sugar cookies. Set up a table with paper plates, plastic knives, napkins along with sugar cookies cut in bat shapes, different colors of frosting, sprinkles, candy corn, etc.

Snacks/Drinks

• Ice cupcakes with black and add bat-shaped edible decorations.
• Use bat-shaped cookie cutters to make bat sandwiches or pancakes. Using a bat shaped cookie cutter, cut flour tortillas into bat shapes. Lightly brush both sides of each bat shape with oil. Place tortilla shapes on cookie cutter and place in oven. Broil tortilla shapes, flipping chips once when they begin to brown. When brown on both sides, sprinkle lightly with salt or a mixture of cinnamon and sugar.
• Bat grog: Combine 2 cups grape juice, 2 cups lemon-lime soda, lime sherbet, and lemon sherbet. Chill.

Jolanda Garcia is a former teacher and educational content designer. Her goal is to provide parents and teachers with quality resources to promote their children's development and creativity. Visit her websites at: Preschool bat crafts and activities, and Halloweenparty ideas.

Toddler Dash Halloween Costume (Size: 4T)

As mid-October approaches there are teachers all over looking for some new and interesting manner of presenting the story of Christopher Columbus. How many times can you read the same book?

How about engaging your students and exciting them by creating a podcast that can be posted online for the world (or at least their parents and grandparents) to listen?

Simply choose a reader's theater script that you like. There are many available online for free.

Practice, practice, and then practice some more.

When you are ready to record there are a few methods:

1. Hook a microphone directly to the computer and record. The two most common applications for recording are GarageBand and Audacity.

2. Attach a voice recorder to your iPod and record. Griffin makes a nice one. (Be sure to set the quality to the best for recording so that the voices import correctly. If you end up with chipmunk voices in GarageBand you'll have to burn a CD with the audio tracks and then import.)

3. Use an actual voice recorder that then hooks to your computer.

After getting the best recordings, import the tracks, edit if necessary, and compile into a single track.

Post online for everyone to hear!

When kids know that their voices will be heard from anywhere in the world they have a real purpose for improving their reading fluency.

Another idea for celebrating Columbus Day is to build the three big ships on the hallway wall. Take each child's photograph. Using only the face, have each student create one of the people sailing with Columbus on the journey. The person should be dressed for the proper time era and/or position on the boat. Hang them all up on the ships! A slogan might be: Cruisin' With Columbus.

Make these Columbus Day lessons some that your children will always remember!

Download a free technology-rich lesson at http://technologylessonsforteachers.com/ Want to integrate iPods into the school setting? Start with http://ipodsatschool.com/

Kathy Cothran is an elementary media specialist committed to helping teachers turn toys into learning tools. Her vast teaching experience ranges from preschool through Master's level education classes.

For years Kathy has been a "Gadget Girl." She loves technology! Tie that to her extensive teaching background and she has been able to interest, invigorate, and inspire children and teachers to use technology in a rich, exciting manner.

halloween costume ideas

Children's Pig Halloween Costume (Sz: Medium 8-10)

At this level, you will require few tools: wire cutters or a jeweller's saw, a mandrel (a shaped metal bar used to bend wire in a certain pattern) and, if you're using wire cutters, safety glasses. Wire cutters allow you to determine the diameter of your jump rings more accurately. You will also require wire.

The first step is to wrap your silver wire around the mandrel, taking care that the coil is perpendicular to the axis of the mandrel. Whatever your choice, you want to create even rings and this is best achieved by pulling the wire tight as you wrap it and keeping it under tension. Once you have used your silver wire, you can then slide the resulting coil from the metal bar.

Cutting the rings from the coil can be done in two ways and this is a matter of personal taste. Wire cutters can be used to cut excess wire from one side of the coil and then it is simply a case of cutting rings from the wrap. As a matter of embellishment, the rings can be cut either using slanted or perpendicular cuts. Some wire cutters make a flat cut on one side, which can result in a flat cut on one end of the jump ring and a slanted cut on the other, meaning that the ring itself would never close properly. To prevent this, you will need to snip the end of the coil flush, before making the next cut to create another ring.

If you are using a jeweller's saw, a good idea is to run a length of masking tape along the coil and hold the rings together, before cutting into the coil itself. You may want to cut from the outside of the coil and into the centre or, alternatively, from inside the coil out. The gauge of the silver wire and the density of your jump rings will inform you which the best course of action is.

Jump rings are extremely useful components to jewellery making and relatively simple to make although, if you have never done it before, you must expect to make a few mistakes. Once you have mastered the art, you will be able to turn out jump rings of different shapes and sizes, adding a new dimension to your jewellery-making.

Adam Hunter - E-commerce Marketing Manager of cooksongold.com. Cookson Precious Metals offer a choice of supplies from over 10,000 products including gold and silver wire, jewellery findings, tools, precious metal clay and precious metal sheet - gold, silver, platinum and palladium plus technical information for jewellers, jobbers, designer, craftsmen, artisans and students.

For interviews, quotes, images or comments contact:
Adam Hunter
E-commerce Marketing Manager
Tel(DDI): +44 (0) 121 212 6491
E-mail: adam.hunter@cooksongold.com

holloween

Sexy 3Pc School Spirit Cheerleader Halloween Costume

Look what we found!" My brother and I raced into the house, arms extended, each with a tiny baby rabbit. "Can we keep 'em? Can we keep 'em?" we shouted. My mother loved animals (cats and dogs) and didn't have the heart to refuse immediately. She wisely deferred the decision to the master of the house. While we waited for my dad to come home, we played with the bunnies and started to mentally list all the reasons to keep the rabbits as pets. One baby wore a pure white coat and a circle of dark gray around her eyes. Her brother sported white and gray areas with black tipped guard hairs down his back. We laughed as they hopped over one another, probably looking for their mother, and watched as they left little round presents that we quickly snatched up before our mother could see.

Installing the twins in a cardboard box made comfortable with shredded newspaper and leaf lettuce, we hurried outside to build a hutch. Not for a moment did we think that good old Dad would not take the orphans in. We looked again, but there was no sign of the mother rabbit. The chicken wire we found would scarcely keep a grown rabbit locked up much less a two ounce baby bunny. But after much hammering and a few screams of pain, the hutch was finished. Sweating, we carried the box to the back yard and covered it with canvas, ready for the moment of truth.

Soon, Dad arrived and was immediately surrounded with shouted explanations of our adventure and pleadings to be allowed to keep them. Weren't we lucky to have found two, one for each of us? We automatically discounted our younger sister for being too young. Kitchen noises were followed by a call to supper. My dad sat in his favorite chair reading the paper while my mother insisted we wash our hands -- again. At the table, there was much discussion about how wild animals thrived in the out-of-doors and how they often contracted colds and such from the heat in the house. Barely weaned, my brother tried feeding the bunnies with a doll baby bottle with a real rubber tip, but it didn't work. Finally, my mother supplied us with an eye dropper which worked if we force fed the struggling animals.

After supper, we went to gather the bunnies to further our pleas to our silent father. Huddled deep in one corner of the box was the white rabbit, shivering with fright. Of the male rabbit there was no sign. A frantic search under the furniture and in every corner was fruitless. Panicky, we even tried to enlist my dad in the search for the missing animal. Suddenly, from the living room we heard my dad say, "Uh oh , here he is!" He had inadvertently sat on the bunny, squashing him with his full weight as he sat in his favorite chair. Now a bag of bones lying still on the cushion, his little rabbit soul had gone to bunny heaven. Carrying him outside in a match box, I dug a hole by the glow of a flashlight held by my brother.

Back inside, my brother and I reluctantly agreed that the lone survivor be transported to his burrow, come what may. My dad reminded us that though we mourned the loss of our baby bunny, there were probably hundreds of rabbits in the woods behind the house. That night, as we cuddled our favorite cat in our bed, we dreamed of rabbits by the millions.

Retired portrait photographer. Do you have any similar experiences?

halloween decorations