This video of Dia de los Muertos happening in the streets of San Francisco's Mission district, posted by YouTube user documentdocument, is an otherworldly creation. To me, it embodies so many wonderful things about the art and craft of life and death. The participants of the event are an almost overwhelming subject. The face paint transforms the living into the dead, masks identity, and unifies the crowd. The costumes range from quite simple to overly elaborate, and the candles, props, and dance all complete the atmosphere.

The film itself is a spectacular piece of storytelling. Splicing in bridges and tunnels seems like the perfect metaphor for crossing over after death. The impact of this piece is made even more poignant by the way that the musicians and dancers in the parade are visually rendered silent with the musical overlay. We can see the drummer playing, see the horns pass through, watch the accordian bellows open and close, but we can't ever hear a single one of their notes. This helps the film replicate how the memories of the dead can flash in our minds, but never really be heard again.

[via Mission Mission]

I know Halloween is over, but I still want to share with you this awesome angler fish jack-o-lantern. Rawr!

Threadbanger's Mad Hatter Halloween costume tutorial video made a huge splash this year, just check out all the viewers' versions of the outfit! What a great costume, tutorial, and response!

CRAFT friends and Instructables folks Eric and Christy dressed their baby girl, Corvidae, as a 3-armed baby for Halloween. They posted up a tutorial for the costume, made from two identical baby outfits and a doll arm.

While we wanted to be subtle, this was almost too subtle - she wore the costume all day, and hardly anyone noticed! But when they finally detected a problem, the responses were excellent.

Halloween's over for this year, but you can start thinking about next year! Check out ModMischief's Ludo costume from the David Bowie-tastic movie Labyrinth.

Gareth @ MAKE writes:

Eric Testroete, a 3D character artist from Vancouver, sent us this awesome self-portrait costume, an homage to Big Head Mode in videogames.

More photos at Eric's Flickr.

Clever and simple costume via PT @ MAKE: "Low Resolution."

This project came in as en entry for MAKE's microcontroller-themed Halloween contest, and is sadly ineligible for lack of use of a microcontroller, but they're the most impressive Where the Wild Things Are costumes I've ever seen. Kadijah Moss Guidry writes in:

Well we loved the characters so much and my twin daughters really wanted to be them. I went to work on it with cardboard, old fur coats, fur remnants , an old leopard costume from years ago, animal house slippers and my imagination. I have no experience or education in design or sewing but it came out great. It took about 1 week to do the first costume headpiece and about 3-4 days for the second headpiece. My daughters were very pleased and so was I. Everywhere we went we were stopped and crowds of people wanted to take pictures. No one could believe that these were made at home. Some people were so amazed they started to get emotional. It was kind of weird but I was flattered. My daughters were so proud of their costumes.

Howtoons is having a Halloween costume contest! The winning homemade costume will be immortalized in a Howtoon explaining how to make it for future generations. So dig up those photos of your fantastic costume and send them in by November 4th! (And, since it's always cool to dress in costume, check out their special Homemade Hero and Jet Pack costume Toons.)

Instructables user prixprix went as The Old Gray Lady (a nickname for the New York Times) for Halloween this year. In her tutorial, she shows us how to pleat and sew newspaper by machine to make this newspaper dress.

It's finally Dia de los Muertos, or, Day of the Dead. I've lit the candles on my shrine, and reflected and celebrated the lives of my loved ones who have passed on. This year the holiday has been particularly rewarding due to the crafty energy that I put into my altar. I have loved looking at the images and stories submitted to the Crafty Chica Challenge, there are truly moving pieces of art posted. The special emotions and memories that have been shared in the flickr pool are just amazing. Enjoy life, everyone!

It's too late for this year, but I'm filing this life-sized matryoshka doll costume from The Happy Zombie away for next year. Especially if I can get my kids to be the smaller nesting dolls .....

LED Necklace by Sunset Spark!,

Portrait of an Octopus by Tara H.,

June and Prince by donovanbeeson,

and Rawr Max by Eclectic Circle. Nice costumes, everyone!!

Happy Halloween everybody! If you're having a party and looking to gross out your guests, try this bloody brain shooter cocktail recipe. It uses a little lime juice to curdle some Irish cream that you apply to the shot with a straw to make brain-like strands. Add a touch of grenadine "blood" for a final touch. [Thanks, Fil!]

My friend Princess de la Rosa had her mind set on being a peacock this Halloween and she did a fabulous job of hand-crafting her costume. To make the signature peacock tail, she started with an ordinary paper and bamboo fan. She cut out a piece of cardstock in the shape of the paper portion of the fan when open. She hot-glued the cardstock on to the backside, and had her canvas to work with. She then layered peacock feathers on the framework until she achieved the full look she wanted. She used gold-sequined elastic to construct straps for the feathered fan and glued them in, covering it in cut flat felt. Here's a view from the back:

And here's a shot of it from the front. Her back would be to this side and she would put the straps on like a backpack:

To finish the outfit off, she took two bright blue boas and glued them onto a band of fabric to craft the peacock's skirt. She added additional sequined accessories to tie the look together. She looks perfect! And this is a shot from the test run only. Can't wait to see her tomorrow in full regalia.

I can't wait to parade my sweet boxer, Stella Baby Star, around in her ballerina costume on Halloween. She is the most social and loving pet, and she always insists on being the center of attention. Last night, as I was working on my own Halloween outfit, she looked up at me with her sad eyes that clearly seemed to say, "Brookelynn, I want to be a ballerina, will you make me a tutu, pretty please?" How could I say no? Follow my easy steps to make a tutu for your prima-donna dog! And, always remember to keep a watchful eye on any pet when they are dressed up. Oh, and treats help during fittings!

Paul at Dude Craft wraps up his Halloween guest stories with one from Cathe Holden of Just Something I Made. Cathe shares this clever door sign for hanging alongside your candy offerings if you won't be home for trick or treaters.

Scott Campbell made this skull art by laser engraving into dollar bills. [via who killed bambi?]

Natalie Zee Drieu / Princess Leia
As a kid, I was (and still am) a huge Star Wars fan. I was obsessed with everything Princess Leia. When I was 7 (in 1979), my mom sewed up a Princess Leia costume for me using a store-bought pattern. I liked how she improvised on the belt part and used different colored yarns to make up a braided belt. I ended up wearing this costume over and over around the house for play time. My favorite part was the hood on the costume which I would wear over my head and replay the scene of Princess Leia's stored R2D2 message to Obi Wan. Nerd alert!

Shawn Connally / Bookworm
I was called a bookworm for much of my childhood; I really couldn't travel in a car for more than 12 miles without making sure I had a book with me, and if I wasn't outside playing in the forest or riding my horse, I was curled up with a book. Anne of Green Gables was a big hit, as was The Hitchhiker's Guide series. When I was 10 or 11 my mom suggested that I be a bookworm for Halloween, and the costume shown here was created. We chose Alfred Hitchcock's Stories that Scared Even Me as the book, which still strikes me as a stroke of brilliance (thanks, Mom!). My mom drew some scary images on a butcher-paper covered box we got from the appliance store. We added the title and author, popped some holes in the sides and top for my arms and head. I wore all green, painted my face to match, and added a top hat and gloves to finish off the costume. It's still one of my favorite costumes!

I'm not sure who decided that Halloween cupcakes, cookies, and regular-sized cakes were a good idea for Halloween, but I'm not the one to buck tradition, especially when it involves frosting. And creative decorating.

So over the years I've made quite a few graveyard cakes, and in recent years I've branched out to spider cakes, ghost cakes, jack-o-lantern cakes, and dirt cakes. I do, however, refuse to make a litter box cake, no matter how many times I get sent the photos, links, and recipe. Apparently, imitation cat poop is where I draw the line.

Ive figured out that donating the majority of the cakes to the local Halloween Carnival helps reduce sugar consumption. Well, until my kid wins a cake in the cakewalk and brings it back home. But at least I tried!

Here are some hints for making fabulous Halloween cakes, if you dare!

• For glowing eyes on the Ghost Cake, use halves of egg shells, rinsed off and dried. Then place a sugar cube in each half of the shell, poor a very small amount of lemon extract on the sugar cubes, and light that sucker. Don't leave this unattended!
• For the ghosts on the Graveyard Cake, I've used cut-and-slice cookie dough, cut out sugar cookies, and lollipops wrapped in white cloth. Whatever you've got around will suffice.
• For legs on the Spider Cake, find some Pockys, which are delicious cookies from Japan. I've found them at Cost Plus and specialty grocery stores. I also thought Pirouette wafers might work, or maybe even Twix bars.
• For all the cakes, don't be afraid to substitute Skittles for M&Ms for Reeses Pieces for Gummy Bears. Most anything will work when seen in context -- you're bound to hear "Oh, those are the spider's eyes," or "Oh, little bears are lining the walkway, how spooky!" (As opposed to, "Why did you use Skittles instead of M&Ms? That doesn't work at all!")

The surreal nature of these Halloween baby costumes on Martha Stewart is shorting things out in my brain; they're so creepy and hilarious! [via Extreme Craft]

Even though we're just a few days away from Halloween, there is still time to whip up this fantastic owl costume. Ellen from The Long Thread shows you how over on Alpha Mom, and includes templates for the mask and feathers. I love it!

Meg from Threadbanger's Decor it Yourself is on this week's Etsy How-Tuesday to make some 3D blood spatter decorations for Halloween, like in the TV show Dexter. Bring a little forensics to your Halloween party!

Halloween is a great excuse to get a little greusome in the kitchen, and this meatloaf hand is a perfect example of that. Megan of not martha shows how she created the meatloaf masterpiece, complete with onion slice fingernails and wrist bones.

Zombies and ghouls are all the rage this Halloween, and adding some macabre makeup to just about any getup will immediately zombie-fy it. I have a friend who is a forest ranger, and he's going as the zombie ranger, by just donning his work uniform and adding some gory makeup and some dismembered limbs coming out of his backpack. Maybe I'll just have to be the zombie backcountry snowboarder. This week's flashback is another excerpt from Make: Halloween Special Edition, a 2006 collaboration between the editors of CRAFT and MAKE, our sister publication. Courtney Mault and Max Sparber, experts in horror makeup, wrote an entire Macabre Makeup DIY section for the issue, incorporating simple, kitchen-inspired techniques from master makeup pioneer Dick Smith. I say kitchen-inspired because Smith used Karo corn syrup, unflavored gelatin, and bread crumbs to create many a gruesome look. For this DIY, get out the bread crumbs and get gory!

Macabre Makeup: The Ghoul
By Courtney Mault and Max Sparber

The corpse-eating ghoul is where your kitchen supplies come in handy, because this is a piece of makeup that requires bread crumbs. And if you do a full-face coat of liquid latex, when you're done, you'll have a particularly weird-looking mask that you can reuse.

In theme with the soap cupcakes I posted earlier this morning, here's another tasty-looking craft project. These polymer clay candy corn earrings from the Polymer Clay Cookbook look like a good beginner project, and one that could be translated in to a handful of other halloween uses.

So you spent all that time making your kid (or yourself) that awesome Halloween costume, make sure you can preserve it in photographs with noahw's tutorial! The photo above is atozfriendly's disco ball costume from last year.