I am a sucker for themes. Even at UCF football games, my painted-black toenails receive an accessorized garnish of a delicate golden sword.

You don’t have to be a Ghostbuster to realize Halloween is my friend.

Some of my own favorite homemade costumes in the past have included:

-          Team America outfits (complete with the soundtrack blaring from car en route to party)

-           Dirty Martini drink with a olive hat that you could actually sip cocktails out of with a giant pixie stick straw (my best friend, the Cosmopolitan drink, had an equally cute outfit, complete with a cherry-on-top hat).

-          Rainbow Brite, with my old school colorful shoe-lace ribbon clip

-          I tried to pull of a cute Transformer costume last year, but didn’t have the time to prepare. Can’t win ‘em all, I guess.

Making creative, crowd-stopping costumes is an art; but thinking of them is a science.

I thought I’d put my creative costume brainstorming powers to good use and share some fun ideas for this year’s Halloween festivities. Consider this my good deed, since I am not giving away candy to Trick-or-Treaters this year. My motives are purely altruistic and have absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I am sick of seeing the same “sexy [insert nursery rhyme character here]”’s flouncing about every single year. =) Read more…

They say to write what you know.

Well, I know about energy, passion, and brainstorming.

I also am one of the few people that recognized what they loved to do at an early age, with my first published literary masterpiece* printed in the 4^th grade.

*By masterpiece, I mean a compilation of my schoolwork that my teacher loved so much that she found a printer to sponsor a beautiful rendition of my compiled essays.

However, there is a double-edged sword in having a profession where you love what you do every single day. Read more…

Play the music, not the instrument. ~Author Unknown

Creativity cannot be rushed. Yet for it to be productive, it must.

What music helps you “put blinders on” so that you only see your canvas / screen / notepad / sketchpad?

“Creative Mood Music” that helps stir creativity: Read more…

You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
~Mark Twain

The competition is fierce out there, no matter what your industry.

From designing an illustrious billboard or scripting a masterpiece of a press release, to innovatively cutting [the right] corners so you stay “in the black” this quarter… one thing remains certain: creativity is a must-have these days, not a luxury.

Creativity block?

Ever leave a brainstorming meeting in the morning, only to have your mind flooded with great ideas later that day, when you are cruising with the windows down and music blasting? It’s just as inevitable as thinking of the perfect ‘comeback’ to a bully an hour after he leaves. Sometimes, it’s unavoidable. But other times, you may be able to tinker with fate by psyching yourself out long enough to plan a preemptive “creativity block” attack.
Read more…

No, not the name of the hockey team Sarah Palin and company so loyally support.

But the two in the limelight, the two we are so sick of hearing about, but the morbid curiosity can’t contain us…the two candidates for Presidency this year. In the universal archetypes of literacy, there is always a hero and a trickster. I hope for everyone’s sake, both McCain and Obama are both heroes in some regard.

There are so many platforms, issues, debates, and loaded questions. I have to admit this is the first election I have been actually interested in researching in, and fortunately I’ve found that seems to be the trend with a lot of young voters these days. At least with all the chaos comes a sense of obligatory research, pride in one’s beliefs and genuine attempt to pick someone who will do what is best for them. I mean, best for the country moving forward, right?

Read more…