There has been a lot of coverage on the news about the state of Massachusetts banning bake sales and candy sales from school fundraising as of August 1st. It’s a good thing our Wholesale Costume Club’s Halloween Costume Fundraiser is not only a calorie free alternative but is begins in August so your fundraising efforts won’t miss a beat.

The Halloween Costume Fundraiser is a program, in its third year, that is dedicated to helping schools and non-profit organizations raise funds by selling Halloween costumes at wholesale prices and donating 15% of the proceeds back to the school. In addition to being a great supplemental fundraiser, it provides families with a cost saving way to buy Halloween costumes. And since everyone buys costumes, families can save money and help their school or group at the same time. Every school gets a promo code and a custom-made flyer emailed to them to distribute to students, friends and family. The convenient PDF flyer is ideal for schools that choose to go paperless, or it can be printed and distributed. The school gets 15% of all the sales that use there code at checkout.

According to the Center for Disease Control ad Prevention’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 32.6% of children ages 6-11 were overweight or obese and for 12-19 year olds the number is a staggering 33.6%

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Halloween costumes contribute to kids eating sweets and to childhood obesity. Well, here’s a tip. When I was growing up, my brother and I would divvy our candy and my mom would put our stash into a plastic storage bags and put them in the freezer. Every night after dinner, we would get one piece of candy (usually bite-sized) until all the candy was gone. We had candy well into December whereas our friends were all out by the first week of November. To this day, I still get a craving for a frozen Snickers after a good meal.  The point is, everything in moderation.

The Halloween Costume Fundraiser is available to schools and organizations in all 50 states, US territories and to schools on US military bases worldwide. For more information visit www.halloweenfundraiser.com or call Lara Burke at 732-486-1006.

Pirates! Band of Misfits opens in theaters tomorrow and so far, it has received rave reviews. In fact, Rotten Tomatoes gave it an 86% on their Tomatometer.  Pirates! Band of Misfits is about Pirate Captain, voiced by Hugh Grant, who sets out to defeat his rivals for Pirate of the Year. For years, this honor has eluded him. His rivals are Cutlas Liz (Salma Hayek) and Bill Bellemy (Jeremy Piven). The quest takes them from Blood Island to Victorian London. In the end,  Pirate Captain must choose between basking in the glory of being crowned Pirate of the Year, or staying faithful to his trusted crew.

Reviewers are calling the movie “maniacally inventive” with “quirky characters and sight gags.” Overall, it is funny, the characters very likable, the story entertaining and the stop motion animation is state-of-the-art. Plus, even though it is animated, it could mean a come-back for Hugh Grant, who hasn’t made a movie since 2009 and that one only got a 12% on the Tomatometer, P-U!

Even though we have had no word yet if we will get licensed Pirates! Band of Misfits costumes, I for one, still look forward to seeing this movie with my family. If you could use a good laugh, then check out Pirates! and let us know what you thought of it.

7 year old Kye has become a media sensation for his crime fighting prowess. Yet in reality, he is fighter a much harder battle with Leukemia.

When the Arlington, Texas fire and police departments learned about Kye through the “A Wish With Wings” organization, they were eager to help make Kye’s dream of being a superhero a reality. With Kye in his Batman Dark Knight costume and volunteers dressed as villains and citizens, they staged a series of crimes for which Batman comes to the rescue.

Among his heroic acts were foiling a bank robbery that was masterminded by The Joker.  Then, the Riddler made an appearance, having planted a car bomb behind the “Gotham City Library.”  Batman found the bomb and the actual bomb squad cam to detonate it. On the way back to city hall, Batman assisted a damsel in distress an sent another bad buy to jail.  The exciting day ended with Kye (Batman) being awarded the Key to the City as Arlington became Gotham for a day.

After watching Kye  fight villians so bravely, and rescue a damsel in distress, we know that he will channel that strength  to fight his leukemia like the true superhero that his is every single day.

The new Sexy NBA costumes have arrived just in time for the play-offs. You can wear a costume to support your favorite team. The choices are:

• Chicago Bulls
• Miami Heat
• LA Lakers
• Dallas Mavericks
• NY Knicks
• Boston Celtics

You can find these in the Sexy Sports Costumes section of Wholesale Costume Club or by typing NBA into the search bar on our site.

Sexy NBA costumes are now in stock. What a fun and flirty way for the female fan to route for her favorite team! You can choose from cheerleader costumes and women’s versions of team uniforms.

It looks like the Bulls, The Heat and the Lakers show the most promise to win but being from the NJ area I’ve got to cheer for those Knicks. Check out these sexy NBA costumes and tell us what you think.

Children make every holiday better. The best part about getting the family together for Easter is seeing the kids in the Easter clothes, enjoying their baskets and participating in Easter Egg hunts. If you want to have the very best Easter Egg Hunt EVER, just follow these simple guidelines:

1. Separate your children into two groups according to age, if necessary. One group for 6 and under and the other for 7 and over. This will make it fair. You can hide the eggs in easier places for the younger kids. To help alleviate any confusion, you can also separate the eggs, saying, blue and yellow are for the younger group and pink and green are for the older group.

2. Fill your eggs with a variety of goodies ranging from jelly beans to chocolate kisses. You can also fill them with money; something the older kids really appreciate. For each group, make a special prize egg. It can be an egg with a piece of paper inside that says prize, or it can be an egg that is a unique color from the rest. This will be worthy of a special prize such as a Chocolate Easter Bunny or a toy of some sort.

4. If you are having your hunt outdoors, some great hiding places are under bushes, in planters, behind a shed, under a lawn chair pillow, etc. You get the idea.

5. If they kids in your family are like mine, we even go as far as to say each child can find five eggs each. Once they find their five, they can help the other kids. This keeps everything even-Steven.

You can make the experience even more exciting by having someone in the family dress up in an Easter Bunny costume. If the kids are all very young, you can dress all the children in toddler bunny costumes too. Imagine how cute they will look hopping around the yard hunting for eggs!

If you want some of the luck of the Irish, follow one or all of our top 5 tips for Good Luck on St. Patrick’s Day.

1. Bury a potato in your backyard. This tradition was started by Irish Americans to remind them of the potato famine and why they left Ireland. Burying the potato symbolizes burying the past and the possibility of regrowth.
2. Put a four leaf clover in your pocket. The 4-leaf clover represents hope, faith, love and luck. The luckiest part of having one it finding it in the first place. There are only 1 in every 10,000.  Still, its better odds than winning the Power Ball.
3. Wear Green. This can be in the form of St. Patrick’s Day buttons, St. Patrick’s Day costumes and all fun stuff that comes in green or can be dyed green. Why? For starters, it is the official color of St. Patrick’s Day. Secondly, if you don’t wear green, tradition states that you can get pinched. Even if nothing particularly lucky happens, wearing green is a sure-fire way to avoid a purple nurple.
4. Kiss the Blarney Stone. Kissing the Blarney stone endows the kisser with the gift of gab. Being a smooth talker will definitely bring you good fortune. If you can’t get to the real Blarney Stone, search for an Irish pub by the same name and kiss the bar.
5. Get drunk. Better yet, get your date drunk. By doing so, you are bound to get luck.

Have a fun and safe St. Patrick’s Day. We wish you good luck and good wishes.

May the Irish hills caress you.
May her lakes and rivers bless you.
May the luck of the Irish enfold you.
May the blessings of Saint Patrick behold you.

Rumor has it that Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi is pregnant. She has been holding off on a formal announcement until she can bankroll her pregnancy a la Kourtney Kardashian.  The producers of Jersey Shore will need to do some scrambling to figure out how this new development will fit into the coming season. According to the New York Post, she was lying about the pregnancy because she is in negotiations with US Weekly for the cover story announcing the impending “Snookette” or “Little Snookum.”

What will this pint size party girl will look like with a bun in the oven? Check out our badly altered images of Snooki pregnant.

What does this mean for the Snooki Halloween costume? A round pillow will help you achieve the looks in are artistic rendering below:

The Pregnant Snooki Halloween Costume

You have to admit it would be very funny to see someone freak dancing at a club with a big pregnant belly in a Snooki costume. Who knows, maybe we’ll see the real thing when Jersey Shore – Jersey City premieres. It will be very interesting to see if our images come close to the real thing.

Its all in good fun, Snooki. If you see these, we hope you find them amusing.  We wish you the best for a happy, healthy and easy pregnancy.

St. Patrick’s Day is just around the corner and catching a leprechaun will make it an even greater cause for celebration. If you catch a leprechaun, they will lead you to their pot of gold. Oh happy day!! The problem is that they are very clever so you need to know what you are doing.

Follow these step by step instructions to catch a real, live leprechaun:

1. Set traps.  See the video below for a scale model of the Best Leprechaun Trap Ever. Some say the trap should be decorated in green with shamrocks and rainbows. Others say they should camouflage into the background. Which ever way you go, no two should look alike.
2. Bait your trap. Lucky Charms are the bate of choice among the most successful hunters. Rocks that are spray painted gold are a great way to trick a leprechaun into a trap.
3. Look for leprechaun tracks and leave traps nearby. Leprechauns leave a trail of gold dust or glitter behind them so spotting glitter on the ground is a sure fire sign that these little hooligans are close.
4. If you want to attract leprechauns, dress like one. Leprechaun costumes will make them think they are among their own kind. It the perfect way to trick them.
5. If you are lucky enough to catch one, be sure that you don’t take your eyes off them for a second. Keep them in the trap and don’t let them out no matter how convincing their plea. Do not let them go until you have their pot of gold. Good luck. Happy hunting.

Get started early because Leprechaun hunting season ends on St. Patrick’s Day

Read Across America is on March 2nd, in honor of Dr. Seuss’ birthday. The event honors Dr. Seuss because his books have been used to teach so many young children to read, and to develop a life-long love of reading.

All over the country, teachers and student don Cat in the Hat costumes for Read Across America as part of the celebration which consists of activities and lesson plans aimed toward making reading fun. The NEA offers “13 Seuss-gestions.”

This year The Cat in the Hat will have some competition. Read Across America will go green this year coincide with the release of the the movie,  The Lorax, which premieres on March 2.  Teachers have the option to do the traditional Cat in the Hat theme or feature The Lorax, a story about saving the environment put into fantastical form like only Dr. Seuss could do it.  Be sure to read our blog the week of March 5th that reviews The Lorax. In the meantime, take a sneak peak at the trailer:

If you want to take the Read Across America pledge, go to the pledge site.

Every year Lady Gaga continues to surprise us with her very unique costumes. From meat to bubbles, don’t you wonder what she will do next?  Lady Gaga has already worn meat. Maybe this year she should wear a big, puffy cotton candy dress. Her equally delicious rival, Katy Perry has done cupcakes and whipped cream so perhaps a dress made from strung macaroni would be good for her this time.  Their outrageous outfits make great Halloween costumes but they are also a fun way to support them in her quest to win her many Grammy nominations this year.  If you are attending or hosting a Grammy party this weekend, you and your friends can dress up in costume representing your favorite Grammy nominee. In addition to Lady Gaga costumes, Katy Perry costumes are readily available.  Lazy Guys can wear the Bruno Mars Chimp Mask from the Lazy Song video or they can get pimped-out like Cee Lo Green. There are so many pop and rock inspired costumes from Wholesale Costume Club.

As for Lady Gaga, check out some of her past Grammy looks:

For even more outrageous images of our favorite musicians and their crazy outfits, check this out!

What types of costumes will we see in costumes this year? Food? Chainmail? Feathers? I guess we’ll have to wait until February 12th when the Grammys air on CBS.