Free Halloween Printables Round-Up

Halloween is little more than a week away - are you all set? If you're looking for a few last minute ideas nothing says cheap and easy (but still awesome) like printable freebies from around the internet. Here are a few of my favourites.

These mini Halloween cards from Babalisme are too cute and so easy. All you need to do is print, cut and fold in half. Be sure to check out her Halloween paper dolls while you're visiting - so adorable!

The Martha Stewart website has a ton of Halloween templates and clip art like these Jack-o-Latern Party Favours. Visit Martha's Halloween page for many more great ideas.

Freak out - or just entertain - family and friends with these free printable labels from Funkytime. Your kids will love eating Brain Jam or a jar of Spill Your Guts. And I love that Sibylle even took the time to put nutritional information on all the labels as well!

Another great place for free Halloween printables is the HP Creative Studio. I'm loving these awesome pumpkin carving templates. I think I just might try the owl this year.

And this is just a small sampling of all the fun and easy printables and projects that are available all over the web. Seriously, do a Google search and get busy crafting this weekend!

Party Perfect - Hallmark Outlet Store

This post is for my readers in the Toronto area, or further if you're willing to do a little driving for some great deals. The Hallmark Outlet Store in North York is only open three days each month - the last Thursday, Friday and Saturday - and we'd been planning to go since before Christmas but never remembered when the end of the month came around again. So after missing the March dates we marked it in the calendar and finally made it at the end of April.

I wish I had taken pictures while at the store to give you a better sense but it was really crowded and kind of overwhelming. It is truly a warehouse outlet, just cement walls and cardboard boxes but who needs fancy displays when the prices are this good?! I bought everything pictured below for $10 plus tax.

Gift bags for $1, stickers for $0.25, rolls of wrapping paper for $1 - I was in gift wrapping heaven! I loaded up my arms until I couldn't carry any more without really keeping track of what my purchases were adding up to. Luckily when you're finished shopping, a store employee adds up all of your purchases for you and lets you know the total before you head to the cash register. I think the guy that counted my stuff used some kind of super special discount math because there is no way that he charged me the actual prices for all of my stuff. I think the name of the game is to blow out all their extra stock by any means necessary.

I will definitely be returning. I think the key is to plan your trip for after a specific holiday. They had Halloween and Christmas stuff but there was definitely a lot more in the way of Easter and St. Patrick's Day decorations with those holidays having just passed.

Have you ever been? Are you itching to go now? The store is located at 501 Consumers Rd and you can call 416-492-1300  for their hours. Happy saving!

P.S. For some reason half of my pictures decided to flip upside down and refuse to be turned. Sorry about that!

Party Perfect - The Party Dress Magazine

Today I wanted to share an awesome party planning resource in the form of a website called The Party Dress. Founded in 2009, The Party Dress is a website dedicated to all things entertaining.  It provides daily eye candy and entertaining tips to encourage readers to get creative!  They offer inspritation for all sorts of events and have great DIY ideas so you know I'm a fan!

This month it got even better with the release of the first issue of their online magazine. Click here to check out it!

It's got a million awesome ideas for showers, weddings, birthdays and more. My favourite feature has to be their Easter Bunny Brunch for children. So many super cute ideas that make me wish I had a little one just for the occasion!

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Adorable, right? Head on over and check out the magazine for yourself. I guarentee you'll be inspired!

Now if only they'd ask me contribute... :)

The Blog Guidebook

If you're looking to drive some additional traffic to your own awesome blog then look no further than the Blog Guidebook. It's a huge directory of blogs that you can link up to for free and attract readers that might not have found you otherwise. In addition to being a directory they've got how tos and other resources for bloggers. Defintely worth a visit!

And while the guidebook might appeal most to my fellow bloggers, rest assured that readers of blogs should be interested in visiting the Blog Guidebook too because they've got thousands of lovely blogs broken down into pretty much every category you can imagine. Like crafting? They've got blogs for that. Want to read about Going Green? No problem, they've got blogs for that. Photography, travel, adoption, allergies (yes, allergies!) - they've got blogs to meet your every reading need.

And the best part is that now they've got Sugar and Shimmer too :)