Martha Stewart Halloween 2011

I never thought I'd say it, but Martha Stewart is wonderful!  I resisted the Martha phenomenon for so long because I don't buy into the cookie-cutter brand of creativity that is dominates craft and housekeeping magazines.

But the Martha Stewart Halloween special issue, with those ridiculous moth wing eyelashes, enticed me in, and I was not disappointed!  The 2011 Halloween issue is marvellous, full of imaginative DIY decorations and costumes, and tasty-looking food.  The art design is very inventive.

Sure, it promotes a senseless model of consumption just for the sake of decoration, and gives us all unreasonable expectations about how polished our lives should be.  But used correctly, it can be a great source of inspiration.  And it's so pretty!

And best of all, Saint Martha has lots of Halloween projects online, including: indoor decorations, costume ideas and activities (both billed as for children, although I beg to differ), pumpkin carving suggestions, and recipes. I'm sure I'll be featuring more of these in the future, and maybe even testing some, but we have to start somewhere.