Half of the fun of owning and decorating a dollhouse is making sure the look never stays quite the same. Dressing it up for the holidays and then dressing it back down for everyday living can make a miniature homestead the center of attention year round. When Halloween rolls around, this pursuit becomes extremely easy. Unlike Christmas when purchased decorations are often required, Halloween presents plenty of opportunities for a do-it-yourselfer to shine.

To get started in making spooky and scary miniatures for your dollhouse, you’ll need to collect some basic craft items. A good starter list might include such things as heavy stock paper that is just light enough to go through a computer printer, glue, tape, scissors, varnish, craft sand and colored clay.

If you look online, you’ll be able to find a number of craft projects to help you dress up your house for the witching season. Some projects available at no charge include:

Coffin cases – You can find sites on the Internet that offer full patterns for scary, black coffin cases. All that’s required to make these miniatures is a computer, printer, paper and a little patience.

Table settings – You can make your own holiday paper cups and plates by using readymade patterns that can print out from your computer. These require the same materials as the coffins, but glue is also necessary. Varnish can be used to ensure that more than one season of use is enjoyed out of a single project, too.

Window decorations – Spooky ghosts, jack-o-lanterns, witches and more can all be printed out in the right scale and cut out for decorating dollhouse windows and more.

Trick-or-treat bags – With the right patterns and a little bit of time, it’s easy to put together these extra special touches for decorating a dollhouse. These also rely on readymade patterns that can be printed out and cut to fit.

Miniature jack-o-lanterns – With the right colored clay – even child’s play clay – it is easy to shape a jack-o-lantern for dollhouse use. Just roll out and shape orange clay to make the pumpkin. Then use black clay to form the eyes, nose and face. These are easy enough to make that it’s quite possible to create a grouping for an extra special touch outside the dollhouse.

Apples and candy apples – If bobbing for apples is a holiday treat in your neck of the woods, make a miniature to replicate the tradition. Just use a standard dollhouse wooden bucket and fill it with miniature apples. These can be purchased readymade or crafted from clay. It’s also possible to make candy apples by adding toothpick pieces to a clay apple. For the nuts, just roll the apples in light craft sand.

Decking out a dollhouse for the Halloween season is an easy and fun project to tackle on a weekend. From the inside decorations to the grounds, it’s possible to create almost everything you might want in the comfort of your own home.

By: Lily Morgan

There has always been attention given to the activities of various celebrities. In recent years, celebrity news has become more popular. This trend has paved the way for more celebrity magazines to emerge in order to satisfy the public's appetite for celebrity gossip. However, although celebrity magazines have had an impact on the magazine world, the magazines have also had an impact on Hollywood as well.

With the dramatic increase in attention the celebrity magazines provide, there has been both positive and negative effects in Hollywood. For instance, in a positive development, there has been a giant push for celebrities to promote charities and other organizations that strive to benefit humankind and the world at large. This promotion is done often through the celebrity magazines. When one of these stories is picked up by the gossip magazines, millions of people are made aware of these causes and can contribute to these benevolent organizations. Putting pressure on major organizations to enact change is something positive that celebrity magazines have done. Also, due to the fact that celebrities have recognizable names and therefore powerful voices, what celebrities say and the organizations that they support receive an increase in attention through celebrity magazines and other venues.

It is important to remember, however, that celebrity magazines are for entertainment. In many cases, no matter what magazines say about celebrities, the individuals that they are covering are sometimes people who do not want the hype. Obviously, these artists and power-brokers are in the public eye, but, in the end, many are just hardworking individuals who are doing what they love to do, and are not looking for extra attention. Nowadays, with so many celebrity magazines on the market, more reporters and photographers than ever before are fighting for stories and photos. This can be distracting to those that simply want to work in Hollywood or elsewhere, and in the worst cases, can affect the quality of their work. .

Consequently, the more celebrity magazines that are available to the public means more pages that are needed to be filled with celebrity gossip. The various magazines require stories and pictures to satisfy their readership. What this leads to, ultimately, is that each magazine must develop an angle to attract the reader, and sometimes these angles might not be accurate, or even an obvious lie. Some couples claim that the constant pressure from the celebrity magazines is what ultimately led to their breakups, and some claim that by doing these things out in public where everyone can see them, the couples themselves have allowed the magazines to have an impact on what they are doing and where they are going as a couple. This can be very entertaining for readers, but perhaps damaging to the stars' career. Managing these situations from a public relations point of view is crucial to the stars maintaining a positive image.