More at Medium Large.

Body wraps are popular in spas these days; they help tone and tighten the skin and can soothe minor skin ailments. (They’re also reported to help “detoxify” the body and eliminate cellulite but I haven’t actually seen any scientific studies on that so I wouldn’t necessarily expect miracles.) A spa visit is expensive, but the ingredients for a homemade body wrap are cheap and easy to obtain. Most of the ingredients are available at the grocery store, and the others can be found at soap supply companies (like Majestic Mountain Sage or Snowdrift Farm), some health food stores, or Amazon.

Equipment:

• Wrap sheets – You can purchase “mud sheets,” but thin towels or even Ace bandages are fine.
• A mixing bowl.
• A nonreactive (stainless steel or enamel) pot with at least a gallon capacity.
• A nonreactive (stainless, plastic, or wooden) spoon.

Ingredients:

• 8 cups (2 quarts) of water
• 2 cups of cosmetic clay – Choose Bentonite if you have oily skin and Kaolin if your skin is dry.
• 1 cup of salt – Any kind will work: Sea salt (which may include additional minerals), “cosmetic” salts like Hawaiian Red or Himalayan Pink, or plain old kosher salt. Don’t use table salt that has an anti-caking agent added. You can also replace some or all of the salt (sodium chloride) with epsom salts (potassium chloride).
• 1 cup of powdered seaweed – Use one or a mixture of kelp, Irish moss, bladderwrack, or other seaweeds.
• 1 cup of powdered herbs – Use one or a mixture of herbs such as green tea, peppermint, lavender, chamomile, or rose petals. You can powder dried herbs yourself in a blender or food processor. Take care when using flowers (such as chamomile) if you tend to have pollen allergies, and if you’re pregnant make sure you research whether your chosen herb can cause health problems (goldenseal, mugwort, and pennyroyal can call cause uterine contractions, for instance).

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CRAFT and I Love to Create are presenting the Crafty Chica Challenge: Create a Day of the Dead Shrine.

Little altars to place offerings for the dead are an important part of the Dia de los Muertos celebrations, and many of them are personalized to represent the departed’s tastes. To enter the contest, create your own Day of the Dead shrine and submit it to the challenge Flickr group. Include a description (250 words or less) of what the altar represents and what materials were used to create it. The deadline is October 28, 2009, and winners will be announced on November 2, the Day of the Dead.

There are loads of examples on the Web to inspire you: Google Image results, AZ Central, About.com. 123 Holiday, and Cut Out and Keep amongst many others, plus CRAFT has promised to post additional examples.

This would be a fun and reasonably easy project because the altars don’t have to be very big but they can be extremely elaborate, so you can paint and embellish to your heart’s content. It’s also a nice project for kids, since the altars tend to be colorful. The Shadowspawn have lost two grandparents this year (yes, we looked under the sofa cushions), so I may set them to work decorating a little shrine of their own as a way to let them pay their respects.

If you enter the contest, put your entry in the comments so we can all go admire your handiwork!

“Alice” Room Makeover – The Steampunk Home has some suggestions for decorating with an Alice in Wonderland theme.

Bat Mobile – Instructions and pattern for making a cute hanging bat mobile out of cardboard.

Day of the Dead Embroidery – Gorgeous embroidered version of a pretty Catrina painting.

Horror Decor, Rough Night Collection – Blood-spattered bedding. This would be fairly easy to DIY with fabric paint. (Hat tip to Kitten Herder)

Cthulhu Blankie – Adorable little crocheted baby blanket with extra tentacly goodness.

Blood “Energy Potion” – Fruit punch-flavored energy beverage with the same color and consistency of blood. Packaged in a resealable transfusion bag.

24 Crafts in 24 Hours – The Swell Life is going to try to complete 24 different Halloween crafts in 24 hours on October 8. This will be a great source of quick and easy craft ideas.

And some sites that will be doing Halloween themes all month:
Countdown to Halloween
Dave Lowe Design (and Para Abnormal)
Dabbled
Gothtober
Creepy Cupcakes
365 Halloween

Check out this awesome ouija board dining table over at CraftyGoths. The artist sanded the top of a wooden table, stained the edges, and hand-painted(!) all of the symbols. It’s just gorgeous.

I’d never be able to manage the hand-painting bit,* and some of the drawings are a little too finely-detailed to do with stencils, but I bet a similar effect could be accomplished by printing out the symbols and then decoupaging them to the tabletop. Seal it with several coats of spar varnish and it should hold up just fine.

The artist says she plans to put a lazy susan shaped like a planchette in the middle of the table, which is additional brilliance.

One of the post commenters says that she did a similar ouija board on her bathroom counter (no details on what materials she used), and you could do one on a smaller side table or desk, too. It’s elegant and creepy at the same time. I love it.

*I have the artistic talent of Rembrandt. If he were hogtied and stuffed in a sack of live weasels.