Spooky Season Made Easy!

It’s hard to believe that Halloween is already here! If you’re anything like me, sometimes holidays just sneak up on you – and you realize that you’re out of time to prepare. Don’t worry, the library has you covered with some last-minute ideas to ensure your ghostly celebration is a hit!

Costumes
Creativebug offers a wide range of high-quality crafting tutorials; just log in with your library card number to check out some last-minute costume ideas for you or a young person in your life.

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• Whimsical Felt Beards are the key for an Abraham Lincoln or lumberjack costume – or get creative and go for a hot pink beard full of birds!
• Throw on your favorite green outfit and add a Felt Flower Headband for a quick floral look
• Customize your plumage with the Quick and Easy Bird Costume 
• Pair zombie makeup with regular clothes for an instant costume or try some of the other classic Halloween faces in this Face Painting tutorial
  

Ambience
What’s Halloween without a creepy soundtrack?  I’ve always loved putting on haunted house sounds for trick or treaters – like Halloween Spooky Sounds or 98 Scary Sounds. Our branches have a number of
these background audio CDs to give your Halloween the perfect ambience.

If you prefer actual music, the library has you covered there too!  We have Halloween variety CDs featuring a mix of popular classics, like “The Monster Mash” or the Ghostbusters theme song. Personally, my Halloween playlist isn’t complete without the soundtrack from The Nightmare Before Christmas!  Looking for something a little less scary?  We also have Halloween music for young people, like A Gentle Halloween or any of the Kidz Bop Halloween albums.

Activities
Scary movies are a classic Halloween pastime!  We have a huge collection of horror movies on DVD or Blu-Ray at our branches.  If streaming is more your style, you can use your library card to view your spine-chilling selections through Kanopy – including plenty of kid-friendly options!

Looking to get out of the house?  Why not take a trip to Eastern State Penitentiary with one of our museum passes?  This famous prison offers daytime tours of the crumbling cell blocks that once housed notorious criminals like Al Capone; each of our three library passes (available at Ewing, Lawrence, and West Windsor) provides admission for six guests.  (Please note that these passes are not valid for the evening Halloween Nights events.)

Happy haunting!

- Paula, Lawrence Branch