Happy Halloween VIII – Colorful Halloween Decorations

* The Design Colors used in Halloween Decoration
--- Orange is the Themed Color of Halloween



Echoes with "Jack’s Lantern", the color black and orange are traditional colors on the eve of Halloween, and the representatives of black there are black cats, spiders and witches, while the representative of orange is pumpkin lantern (Jack-O'-Lantern), all these decorations are familiar symbols of Halloween.

During the Halloween, you could deck the large dinning table in your home with orange, yellow and green thus to produce a thick ambience of village, accompanied with rural music emitted from stereo, oh! It’s so warm and cozy!

Today, a mass of purple, green and red have begun been used with Halloween decorations. If the home furnishings in your dining room are more suited with these colors, well then they could also bring you great inspirations for your holiday decoration.

* Symbols of Halloween
--- Pumpkin is The Most Popular Figure in Halloween



Among all symbols of Halloween, the pumpkin figure is most popular

Halloween also called "Ghost Holiday" in the West', so many symbols of the Halloween are themed with ghosts and demons, but among them there are also lovely symbols like pumpkin lanterns and scarecrows. Whether on a Jack’s Lantern in your hands or those furnishings on dining table or in dining room, pumpkins could be seen everywhere.

Try and take some minds for the festival, you can choose some storage tanks, small decorations that shaped in "pumpkin head", or use your hands to make some napkins, placemats that formed into big pumpkins, with these you could dress your table uniquely and full of moods, which is very important for holding a successful party.

* Unique Style Home Furnishings
--- Special Ideas for Halloween Decoration


An exquisite candle holder could bring more fun to Halloween decorations easily for us, and to choose candlestick as a Halloween decoration also is very economical. You only should to spend a small amount of money and buy a variety of novel candleholders to deck your dining table in holiday, whose wonderful patterns and aromas could show your high taste prominently. Even these candlesticks are only been displayed on the dining side-tables, they could also acted as kind of elegant embellishments for your happy life. The base of iron candlestick could bring a qualified sense of weight, matched with long candles in solid colors, it can reflect out dazzling sheens.

Simple structure is also a bright spot in the design of this type of candlesticks, using them to deck your dining table could produce unique flavors in Halloween. And small candlesticks are also a good choice, the color of light rose could foil joyful moods well and bring more warm to this festival, and leave you beautiful memories to this special holiday too.

When we choose home furnishings for decoration, flower is always an important factor that could bring us joy and beauty, so in Halloween our dining tables could not keep them away. You can select a bone china flower vase and several wild chrysanthemums matched with it, or to buy some dried flowers that stained with orange, all these are good ideas that keeping with the occasion and the time well.

No matter to choose what decoration or furnishings to decorate your home in this Halloween, I believe they could all bring surprises and enjoyments to our life. Even if you have never been abroad, and never enjoyed this holiday really, as long as you have mastered the furnishing skills of the home life, and as long as you could pay more intention to collect the knowledge of the life with home furnishings and home decoration, I believe you could become a true connoisseur of life and fashion finally.

Happy Halloween VII: How to Make a Halloween Pumpkin Lantern?

How to Make a Halloween Pumpkin Lantern?

Steps 1. Cut

Cut a hole around the top or botton of the pumpkin (the size of the cutted hole should not be too large, but also not be too small to make your hand stretched inside and draw the pumpkin fleshes out

Tips: You should pay more attention on during your cutting and try your best to make the cut surface smoth and tidy.

Steps 2. Draw Out & Shaving Thin

Using a special spoon (a spoon for daily use also is fine) stretch into the pumpkin and draw out the seeds and fleshes of it. Then select a place on the pumpkin skin, on which you are ready for carving, and shave the pumpkin peel thin to about 1 inch thick.

Step 3: Paste Paper Face

Selected a place on the pumpkin and paste or tack the paper face you prepared before.

Tips: Please pay attention to put the tacks in accordance with the dotted lines of the paper face when tacking, thus to avoid producing small holes on the pumpkin skin.

Step 4: Carve and Draw along with Broken Lines

Follow the dotted lines of the paper face and using a small cone or a thumb pin draw out the face figure on the pumpkin skin, and torn down the paper face when finished.

Step 5: Seeing The Results

Finally, to see your results, and using a small cone to amend it point-to-point furthered. So a wonderful work has taken birth and just Picasso is hard to follow!

Holiday Shopping Guide: Unique Christmas Gift Wrap, Gift Boxes and Gift Bags

The holiday shopping season is coming, gift stores are all bursting with colorful Christmas wrapping paper. Online gift stores also offer unique Xmas gift wrap, gift boxes, and gift bags.

Browse the internet to buy holiday gift wrapping options not stocked in your local drug or discount store. Personalized wrapping paper, recycled wrapping paper, reusable Christmas gift bags and boxes line the virtual shelves of numerous online retailers.

To see distinctive Christmas gift wrap choices, view the following ideas:

* Christmas Gift Wrap Collections

Current sells themed holiday gift wrapping collections, including the Christmas Kids Gift Wrap Trio with matching labels on the Web are cute and colorful, these papers featuring Santa, gingerbread men, and candy canes comes in three rolls totaling 45 square feet . The matching sticker set includes 32 to/from labels and 40 seals.

* Recycled Christmas Wrapping Paper

San Diego-based Greenfield Paper Company purchases wind-generated energy credits, and creates paper products from hemp, junk mail, and the chaff of roasted coffee beans. In its holiday wrapping paper line, the company offers designs such as “Oh Deer” (pictured below), which is made from 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper with soy-based inks. A roll contains two sheets measuring 22 inches by 33.75 inches featuring a smooth satin finish.

* Personalized Christmas Gift Wrap

I think personalize holiday wrapping papers with a monogram or message will be welcomed by most of you. The paper is sold by the 24-inch-by-36-inch sheet.

* Fabric Reusable Christmas Gift Bags

Re-gift or reuse these colorful fabric bags with a holiday-themed green-and-red design, these bags are sturdy enough to last for years and come in sizes ranging from extra small (6.25 inches by 6.25 inches) to large (17 inches by 18.5 inches by 2 inches). A grosgrain ribbon is sewn into the side seam.

* Reusable Christmas Gift Boxes

Buy reusable boxes wholesale and save big on bulk containers. Some online gift stores offers a Holiday Red Giftware box in a variety of sizes. Since these are sold in packages of 50 for large boxes and 100 for smaller sizes, you can festively package all of your Christmas gifts with only one box order. Just add a bow and tag and you have a monochromatic, Martha-Stewart-pretty collection of presents for under the tree.


Plan to reuse holiday wrapping paper, bags, and gift boxes every year – if you can keep the kids from tearing through each carefully wrapped present on Christmas morning.

Happy Halloween VI – Do You Believe in Ghosts?

Do you believe in ghosts?

The Associated Press and Ipsos Survey carried out a poll before Halloween, and the public opinion showed that 34% of the respondents said their believed in ghosts.

On the other hand, there are peoples in a same proportion as the above who believe that unidentified flying objects are existed. In addition, the survey shows that 19% of the respondents believed that the “magic power” was existed in the world.

48% of target people believe that the "super-aware" (referring to the perception of ultra-sensory) exists.

23% of the respondents said they had seen ghosts, in which the number of bachelors, Catholics and those persons who have never attended liturgy said “had seen ghosts” is biggest.

30% of the respondents said they believed there are something strange in the room when they waked up.

14% of the respondents (most of them are men and low-income peoples) said they had seen unidentified flying objects.

One-fifth of the respondents said themselves were somewhat superstitious, in which young men, minorities and especially less educated people inclined more. 26% of urban residents said they believed in superstition, and single men are even more superstitious than single women, the ratio of which was 31% and 17% respectively.

The survey revealed that the number of people who believed that "the Four Leaf Clover could help you meet luck" is biggest, which accounting for 17% of the respondents. 13% of people thought walking under the ladder will be down on one’s luck, or if the bride and groom had meet before the wedding was inauspicious. And there are a small portion of the respondents considered that the black cats, broken mirrors, to open a umbrella in the room, "Black Friday", the number 13 are all symbols unlucky.

* Four Leaf Clover

In a word, women are more superstitious than men with four leaf clover, broken mirror and the saying of the bride and groom’s meeting before the wedding is hapless and so on; more Democrats are more superstitious with "it’s inauspicious open a umbrella in the room" than Republicans; Liberalisms are more superstitious than conservative persons who believed that four leaf clover could bring you good luck, the bride and groom meet before the wedding is inauspicious and it’s unlucky to open a umbrella in the room.

The telephone survey was carried out during in Oct. 16-18, 2008, and a total of 1013 adults had participated in.

Happy Halloween V --- Halloween Parade(down part)

New York City's Greenwich Village Halloween Parade could be the annual event of Greenwich Village. The parade was originated from the year of 1973. Initially it was only a simple idea came from a mask maker who is also a puppeteer Ralph Lee. At that time he took a few kids held a small Halloween parade in the community, and later it gradually developed into a large-scale activity throughout the village.

In the parade there are bound to have a event of large-scale puppet show, at the same time, the aim of the parade is hoping everyone are all participants rather than bystanders, so even if the person who originally were only want to act as a watcher, but when he or she entered in the village, he will soon to be invited to join the parade group and become part of them. In the following year, the New York Theater invited him to bring the idea to Main Street, then the annual parade began, and later the last week of October was been formally designated as "Halloweek".

Now, the New York’s Halloween Parade has attracted thousands of New York peoples and tourists each year, and the parade was held in Greenwich Village the teams began at about 7:00pm and started from the 6th Avenue & Spring, and till to the 6th Avenue & 23rd Street, the entire parade process will probably lasted more than 3 hours.

Among the big parade procession, you can see all sorts of exotic dresses and fancy costumes everywhere, even if the New Yorkers who have seen various stranges and bizarreries were also amazed by it. In addition, there are several giant puppets operated by a few peoples to show fantasy images corporeally. Finally, the parade route will extended to the most wild and crazy gay district in New York, and the streets and alleyways were become crowded with those cross-dressers who were all trying their best to playact, the scenery bought a perfect end to this crazy big gathering.





The visitor, no matter come from Asia, South America, Africa, Europe, even Middle East, could dressed himself up into a variety of characters or figures, and a piece of simple musical instrument could been bought along, for purpose of playing local and unique music impromptu for people, and to blend with endemic cultures without borders. In the views of those visitors who have never taken part in the activities of Halloween, not to mention such a wonderful parade, the Halloween parade is so novel and beyond interesting.

The Parade each year has a different theme, such as environmental protection, AIDS and so on. In 2002, for the reason of the event "9-11 terrorist attacks taken place in last year, Greenwich Village erected a statue of the phoenix which is ready to fly up, and used it as a symbol of the reborn after a baptism of fire of New York. This year's parade theme is "play”, and the parade fans all over the world must have been marched in New York with their tippy toes, let's wait and see.

Happy Halloween V --- Halloween Parade(up part)

On October 31 each year, is the Halloween festival for demos and ghosts turning out in West, as the story goes that it is origin could been traced back to the fifth century BC, at that time the Celtic living in Ireland's agreed on this day as the end of the summer, and it also indicates the end of a year, they believed that on the eve of the alternation of a new year and old year, all laws of the time and the space will be suspended for the time being, and the door of the spirit world in this evening will open, thus make all ghosts had a opportunity to walk through the earth, and to find a suitable substitute which could help her to gain a reborn chance. So, as been afraid of becoming the goal of the ghosts, the Celtics put down the fire and to pretended that nobody were at home, at the same time, they wearing awful and ferocious masks and dressed into ghosts and demons walk along the street, hereby to produce a noisy and hubbub atmosphere in order to drive away those wandering ghosts and spirits.

Gradually, these customs have evolved into a celebration of young peoples today, in this evening everybody could disguised themselves to the top of their bent and enjoy a happy festival.

In the evening of Halloween there’s also a parade particularly in the New York City, in which a group of vampires, zombies, witches and Frankenstein and so on will appeared together at that night, and common citizens are also been welcomed to visit, all members no matter what age, sex, class or nationality, even if you are a coward, could join them to enjoy this hot and bustling carnival of ghosts and human beings.

In fact, these ghosts and spirits are all disguised by people, so it’s not terrible really, on the contrary, there are some small grimaced impersonators are very lovely and funny, among in them as if you had been attended in a large fancy ball.

In these various playacting roles, the witch and the corpse are the most played character selected by people, and to meet the demand, those shops who specially supplied Halloween products or decorations also have prepared for this group of Halloween costumes for sale.


At the same time, each year those manufacturers will launch masks and costumes in Halloween whose designs are based on the hottest figure in that year on the market, so that more people could be involved in the hot trend of this traditional western holiday, for example, the figure of small wizard in the movie Harry Potter has become a featured character that a number of children were bound to choose.

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Happy Halloween IV – A Holiday Loved by Children and Adults

Halloween is a best time for children indulged in fun. In the eyes of children, it is a festival full of mystery. As the night fell, the children are all hurried to put on their colorful make-up costumes and wear various ridiculous masks on and go out for playing, as well as carried with a "Jack's Lantern" .



The "Jack's Lantern" looks very cute and lovely, and it could be made out as following steps: Take a pumpkin and hollowed out it, then engraved smiling eyes and a big mouth on the outside, then put a candle in and lit it, so people could able to see this naive and smiling face faraway.
　　
When have dressed up fully, groups of children acted as various demons and ghosts and carried with "Jack lanterns", they ran in front of the doors of their neighbors and shouted threatened: "Trick or Treat", "Money or Eat". If the adults do not treat them with candies or small changes, those naughty children will keep their word: All right, No Treat, Just trick with you. They sometimes painted soaps on their door handles, and sometimes painted colors on their cats. These small pranks often made adults hilarious much. Of course, most of peoples are very happy to treat their innocent little guests. So on the eve of Halloween the children could always get a plump stomach and a full pocket back.

The most popular play on the eve of Halloween is "Biting Apples". In the game, people will put some apples floating in the water with a big basin, and then let the children to bite at these apples without using their hands, and the winner is the first one who bit an apple successfully.

In addition, to adults, Halloween is also a happy night could make the fantasies come to true. Lower Manhattan is no exception as New Yorkers turn out en masse to the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade. They come for the entertainment to see the parade's main playact - paper puppets bobbing above the crowds, and to indulge in an elaborate game of dress-up.
　　
Everyday rules are temporarily suspended and thousands of costumed New Yorkers parade in the streets without fear of being judged. Men in hats (and little else) walk alongside kazoo-playing old ladies. No one is worried by the bizarre or weird, because at the Village Parade, Halloween is a night when anything goes.
　　
Anything but crime, that is. Halloween, a night of mayhem in most other U.S. cities, is peaceful in Greenwich Village. The joyous spirit of the partygoers results in a night when crime is lower than on any other night of the year. This proves, in more ways than one, that Halloween is when one's wildest fantasies can come true for New Yorkers.

2008 Christmas Gifts & Flowers Fashion Trends Forecast

In the view of general consumers, there is still a long time from Christmas. But for those flower distributors and designers of floral decorations, it's time to take it for consideration that to ready what kind of flowers, gifts and craft products to meet this important holiday.

From the traditional style holiday products to those fashion and avant-garde flowers and floral gifts, the suppliers have prepared all decoration materials for the flower shop operators to "enrich" their gift shops, and to make them become more festive and more attractive for their customers.

Mr. Shen is the assistant manager in a silk art products company, in his view, the main fashion trend in this Christmas season is the floral arts & crafts products with traditional art styles and patterns, "the reason is", said Mr. Shen, the fierce competition, fast-paced life, as well as those frequent harassments of those unexpected incidents make more and people in cities inclined to favor with the feeling of "reviewing upon the past times", so many goods with traditional styles and flavors once again become the public focus of attention.

BC Home Decor Crafts Ltd. has prepared 7 series of themed silk products for this year's Christmas, which includes gorgeous and elegant floral products, small and cute toy soldiers, as well as glittered tin wares that in their origin colors. All these gift products are themed with 'back to home' and to produce a feeling that cozy, warm and comfortable for the customers. The gift products also include peace doves in traditional forms, various forms of plastic plants, such as cedar, holly, and so on. Due to Mr. Shen introduction, although using plastic plants is baned with most religions, but as modern peoples have pay more and more attention to the environmental protection, so some manufacturers have started to using silk materials to produce the holiday gifts and decoration products, such as "Cedar", "holly" and other holiday necessities to meet this special demand and psychology of customers.

There are another main trend in this year's Christmas gifts fashion, that is birdhouse, some of the birdhouses are made of materials in same quality and specifications, for example, wood block that printed with traditional holiday colors or be wrapped with galvanized iron sheets. And the birdhouse's sales season would begin from the fall and till to the Christmas, it is one kind of long-term sale products in gift shops.

Kris is the marketing manager in Floral Season Home Fashions Co., Ltd., she is much experienced and deep influenced with the gifts and flowers fashion trends in recent years, "Ten years ago, warm and freedom air colors and art styles are always the main stream in the holidays, but now, some traditional and mass popular style floral gift products have regained places in the holiday market, and again become people’s favorite.

This year, Wellken Crafts Group Limited will launch 5-6 series gifts for the Christmas. However, as view the whole trend of Christmas gifts, through continued improvement on the traditional goods, there will appear many kinds of popular gifts in multi-styles in this year's Christmas market. So, this year's Christmas is still worth looking for by those gift dealers. The company's designers have selected out some blueberries with deeper color, matched with suited brass plates, adhered on which edges there are imitated snowflakes or ice crystals, and among them frozen fruits and berries are used as embellishments. This gift product will act as the main and featured product of Wellken company's series Christmas gifts in this year. In addition, they also have prepared a number of natural wooden gifts produced by villages in countryside or suburbs, thus to meet the demand of those wooden favorites.

Different with the two floral gift dealers mentioned before, Janet, acted as the assistant manager of Taixing Foreign Trade Co., Ltd. always adheres to her own point of view, who is all through seeking unique artistic styles that different with traditional art patterns. Janet had been visited many countries and has obtained a lot of useful information and inspirations, she has also collected a number of unique and peculiar products raw materials.

"I have been to China, the Philippines and Thailand, I found that each place has its unique artistic style, I have benefited much from all these fine things. Recently, I found some accessories like beads and feather products could create unexpected art effect, so I decided to apply them with our products, I believe these small things will bring us different feelings for this winter

The main promoted Christmas gift of Taixing Foreign Trade designed by Janet is a high-grade senior home decoration named "peacock jewelry tree", it used with small beads colored in purple, pink, amaranth and dark green, and flashing peacock plumes as raw materials, finally shaped into a model of Christmas tree,

"Small beads always bring people pretty feelings and make them thought of lovely things. Through carefully process feather could shines with natural and bright colors, and consequently its artistic taste been increased greatly.

Through contacting with the florists, Janet also had ideas of using fresh seedlings and plants to produce gifts, for example, using small beads or mini ornaments that featured with Victorian styles to deck the flowers and plants. And during the products sales Janet also found, those hot welcomed gifts are always matched well with the color of gold. "In fact, the best match with gold is the color of ivory white, and which has the best view effect". Keep an eye on at any moment to watch what color and style of gifts are welcomed and inclined by the customers is very important to the gift manufacturers and dealers.

Taking account for the special condition and importance of the Christmas in people's hearts, any merchant will not give up this distinct shopping opportunity easily, so each of them are all try their best to design and produce different and unique Christmas gifts and decorations, and wish to bring a satisfied end for all year's busyness.

Surrounded with rich and dazzling Christmas gifts and decorations, and it is so difficult to move your eyes away, well then have you been ready for?

Happy Halloween III - Truths about Halloween (Funny)

0) The most popular game on the eve of Halloween is "Biting Apples". In the game, people will put some apples floating in the water with a big basin, then let the children to bite at these apples without using their hands, and the winner is the first one who bite an apple successfully.

1) Halloween is always celebrated on 31 October.
　　
2) Halloween is one of the oldest celebrations in the world, dating back over 2000 years to the time of the Celts who lived in Britain
　　
3) Halloween is correctly spelt as Hallowe’en and Halloween is also know by other names:
- All Hallows Eve
- Samhain
- All Hallowtide
- The Feast of the Dead
- The Day of the Dead
- Nos Calan Gaeaf (Halloween in Welsh)

4) In Mexico, they celebrate Halloween or the Day of the Dead starting the evening of October 31.

5) When the Romans conquered England, they merged Samhain with their own festivals, a harvest festival called Poloma, and a celebration for the dead called Feralia.

6) When Christianity came to England and the rest of Europe, 1 November became All Saints Day - a day dedicated to all those saints who didn't have a special day of their own. They performed a mass called 'All hallows mass' and the night before became known as All Hallows E'en and eventually Hallowe’en or Halloween.
　　
7) Black cats were originally believed to protect witches' powers from negative forces.

8) About 99% of pumpkins sold are used as Jack O' Lanterns at Halloween.

9) It is thought that the colors orange and black became Halloween colors because orange is associated with harvests (Halloween marks the end of harvest) and black is associated with death.

10) A pumpkin is really a squash, and comes from the same family as the cucumber.

11) The biggest pumpkin in the world tipped the scales at a whopping 1,446 pounds. This gigantic gourd was weighed in October 2004 at a pumpkin festival in Port Elgin, Ontario, Canada.

12) Top Tips for Halloween: If your pumpkin lantern shrivels up, you can restore it by soaking it overnight in water to rehydrate it.

13) The very first jack o' lantern was made out of hollowed out turnips.

14) The record for the fastest pumpkin carver in the world is Jerry Ayers of Baltimore, Ohio. He carved a pumpkin in just 37 seconds!

15) If you see a spider on this night, it could be the spirit of a dead loved one who is watching you.

16) Ringing a bell on Halloween eve scares evil spirits away.
　　
17) If you want to meet a witch, put your clothes on inside out and walk backwards on Halloween night.

What’s The Most Popular Christmas Gift This Year?

As the Christmas is coming, what is your favorite gift you are looking for?


* Traditional Christmas Gifts

There was a time when the most popular Christmas gift was an item like socks. But of course, things change and so do the most popular gifts on Christmas.

Of course, that is not to say that socks and other clothing items are not popular gifts. In fact, they are very popular and many people still buy them for loved ones. Only, let's try something new this year. What are some other popular gifts to buy during the Christmas season?

* Toys

Toys for kids are never out of style and every year one toy is always picked as the big toy to buy. It has been Cabbage Patch Kids, Tickle-Me Elmo and Ferbies in the past, and each year more and more parents battle for the big toy of the year. If you don't want to buy the big toy for your kid, there are plenty of other toys out there that are still very fun and hugely popular.

* Digital Cameras

Digital cameras are the wave of the future and within a few years you will see fewer and fewer film cameras, especially for Christmas. It is not hard to see why. Digital cameras are often higher quality, easier to store the photos and you don't have to worry about running out of film, compared with film cameras. You can run out of space depending on the size of your Flash RAM, but its just a matter of downloading and deleting the old photos before you can take more again.

* Books

Books are a big hit with most people. They are readily available, usually pretty cheap, and can bring hours of entertainment to the person who gets one. Try and find out what kind of book they want, what their favorite genre is, or who they enjoy reading.


* Video Game Systems

Video game systems are always a popular gift, and they have been popular for at least the last 20 years or so. Every few years, a new one will be released and moms and dads will fight the hordes of other parents to try and get the best game system for their kids. If the kids aren't getting a video game system, then they will probably want PC video games instead.

* Gift Cards

Recently, the most popular Christmas gift given at Christmas has become the gift card. Over half of gift givers in 2006 gave a gift card to someone they knew as a present. Gift cards are some of the easiest gifts to get. They are just like cash, except they can only be used at the store you bought it at.

No matter what the most popular gift of the season is, buy what you feel they will like, have fun with it and remember that Christmas is not about presents only, but rather about spending time with those you love.

Victor Epand is an expert consultant for flowers and gifts. When shopping for flowers and gifts, we recommend you shop only at the best online stores that specialize in popular Gifts, best Flowers to buy, best Jewelry to buy.


* Neither Here nor There

China is Christmas is the largest source of Christmas items of the United States and parts of European countries, and the period from July to September annual is the focus time for the Christmas products’ exporting. General these Christmas supplies will be shipped to the United States and European countries by sea. Recently due to the price rising of raw materials, and the prices of finished product has been cut down sharply by the United States and European countries, the supplier’s export profits are hard to gain more space, so more and more export companies become to turn their eyes to the countries and districts of Middle East, Eastern Europe and so on.

As regard to the forms of Christmas gifts, aside from traditional Christmas trees and greeting cards, those novel electronic gifts, funny gadgets have given more and new choices to the buyers. So we believe that as the Christmas exporting has gradually become more and more mature, we’ll face another prosperous export season of Christmas gifts in this year.

Happy Halloween II --- Halloween Customs (down part)

Jack’s Lantern

The "Jack’s Lantern" custom probably comes from Irish folklore. As the tale is told, a man named Jack, who was notorious as a drunkard and trickster, tricked Satan into climbing a tree. Jack then carved an image of a cross in the tree's trunk, trapping the devil up the tree. Jack made a deal with the devil that, if he would never tempt him again, he would promise to let him down the tree.

According to the folk tale, after Jack died, he was denied entrance to Heaven because of his evil ways, but he was also denied access to Hell because he had tricked the devil. Instead, the devil gave him a single ember to light his way through the frigid darkness. The ember was placed inside a hollowed-out turnip to keep it glowing longer.

The "Jack’s Lantern" looks very cute and lovely, and its could be bought out very simple: Take a pumpkin and hollowed out it, then engraved smiling eyes and a big mouth on the outside, then put a candle in and lit it, so people could able to see this naive and smiling face faraway, this is just the children's favorite toy on Halloween.

The Irish used turnips as their "Jack's lanterns" originally. But when the immigrants came to America, they found that pumpkins were far more plentiful than turnips. So the Jack-O-Lantern in America was a hollowed-out pumpkin, lit with an ember.

Custom Tradition Review

In the most "haunted" night, all kinds of demons, pirates, witches and extraterrestrial visitors will turn out one after another. In the era before Christ, the Celtics have the custom of to hold a ceremony at the end of the summer to express thanks for the benefactions given by God and the Sun, diviners of the time will light up fires and apply witchcrafts to drive away the demons and spirits that wandering around.

Later, the custom of Romans that using nuts and apples to celebrate harvest was fused with the custom of Celtics on October 31, and In the Middle Ages, people were accustomed to put on costumes of animal designs, and worn terrible masks to drive away ghosts and demons in the night before Halloween. Although the Christianism had taken place of the Celtic and Roman’s religious activities later, these early Halloween customs have been kept down finally.

The Halloween we celebrate today includes all of these influences, Pomona Day's apples, nuts, and harvest, the Festival of Samhain's black cats, magic, evil spirits and death, and the ghosts, skeletons and skulls from All Saint's Day and All Soul's Day.

So, although some cults may have adopted Halloween as their favorite "holiday," the day itself did not grow out of evil practices. It grew out of the rituals of Celts celebrating a new year, and out of Medieval prayer rituals of Europeans. And today, even many churches have Halloween parties or pumpkin carving events for the kids. After all, the day itself is only as evil as one cares to make it.

Today, children wear on a variety of Halloween costumes and masks jokingly to attend Halloween parties, and people has been familiar with the scene of various witches made of paper, black cats, skeletons and ghost figures hanging on the walls of the parties, also in front of windows and doors there are pumpkin lanterns with bare teeth and open mouths or formidable faces.

Happy Halloween II --- Halloween Customs (up part)

On the annual Nov.1 is the traditional Western festival of "Ghost Holiday" – Halloween, and Oct. 31 is the eve of Halloween, it usually known as the night before Halloween. But the atmosphere on this day is far from “horrible” as its name sounds.

The custom of Halloween was brought to America in the 1840's by Irish immigrants fleeing their country's potato famine. At that time, the favorite pranks in New England included tipping over outbuildings and unhinging fence gates.

The best known and featured custom of Halloween are just the two – fantastic ”Jack’s Lantern” and prank “Trick or Treat”.

Every time at the arrival of Halloween, the children are all hurried to put on their colorful make-up costumes, wear various ridiculous masks on and carrying a "Jack Light" walk from house to house and begging for holiday gifts.


Trick or Treat

The custom of trick-or-treat is thought to have originated not with the Irish Celts, but with a ninth-century European custom called souling. On November 2, All Souls Day, early Christians would walk from village to village and begging for "soul candies”, made out of square pieces of bread with raisins.

The more soul candies the beggars would receive, the more prayers they would promise to say on behalf of the dead relatives of the donors. At the time, it was believed that the dead remained in limbo for a time after death, and that prayer, even by strangers, could speed up a soul's path to the heaven.

This is an important part in Halloween days on the dining table, you not only should ready for enough candies and cakes to entertain those naughty ”devilkins”, but also to deck out your table with elaborate care in this special day. Never to let your guests look down with you!

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Love with Crystal VI --- Tips about Shopping for Crystal Jewelry

(A) Material: No gas or liquid inclusions shaped in star points, clouds and wadding in a piece of crystal jewelry made of find and quality crystal could be found, and to select those jewelries made of crystals with pure, smooth and limpid characters, if you find touches of irregular rupture stripes, points in the crystal, which can be decided to an inferior.


(B) Workmanship: There are two types of crystal products processing techniques: grinding and carving, for example, crystal necklaces, bracelets and crystal earrings are belong to grinding pieces, and crystal statues of Kwan-yin, inner-carved snuff bottle belong to carving pieces.

A fine made crystal jewelry with exquisite and elaborate craftwork will not only display the exterior beauty of crystal jewelry such as the designs, styles and symmetrical features, but also could dig out its inner beauty such as its limpid and brilliant quality, artful colors extremely.

(C) Polishing: The quality of polishing will have a direct impact on the value of the crystal jewelry. In the process of the machining the crystal must go through a procedure of silicon carbide polishing, and a careless and coarse workmanship will leave traces of friction on the crystal surfaces. Fine crystal jewelry are all with good natural transparency and shiny luster, as a local saying as ”made by hot enough fires”.


(D) Eyelet: As to those bunched string pieces of crystal jewelries such as necklaces, bracelets and Rosaries, it’s necessary to view whether the eyelets of crystal beads are flat and straight or not, the sizes of eyelets are fine shapely or not, and in which there are no small cracks too. At the same time the walls of eyelets should be clear, clean and transparent, and have no "white marks”.

(E) Color: Even within the same type of crystal jewelry, there are a variety of textures and colors in the different parts. The crystal jewelry in a particular plain color should made of crystals with same colors, while the crystal jewelry of crystals with different colors, it’s required to have a texture and tone that is attractive and elegant.


(F) Appropriacy: When you are shopping for a piece of crystal jewelry, you should to wear it for a try, and to see whether the size, elasticity and length of the jewelry are all suit for you. For an enchased jewelry, it’s necessary to make sure that the crystal jewelry is strong, standard and shapely. In addition, another thing should take for consideration is the design, style and color of the jewelry is fitted with your fit, your skin color, your face and your clothing.

Happy Halloween I - The Origin of Halloween

At first, let’s talking about the origin of word “Halloween”: a lot of nations on the eve of Halloween will held a celebration gathering, which also be called "All Hallow E'en", "The Eve of All Hallows", "Hallow e'en", or "The eve of All Saintas' Day ", and last evolved as a convention into "Halloween", in Chinese we call it “the night of Halloween”.

Halloween is an annual celebration, but just what is it actually a celebration of? And how did this peculiar custom come from? Is it, as some claim, a kind of demon worship? Or is it just a harmless vestige of some ancient pagan ritual?

In the Medieval Ages, the central Europe had a history of demolishing heathens, but the sacrifice ceremony before the New Year’s night has never been reclined indeed, and just appeared in the form of wizard. That’s why in today’s Hallowmas, we are still familiar with witch’s brooms, black cats and curses.

Halloween is one of the oldest holidays with origins going back thousands of years. The holiday we know as Halloween has had many influences from many cultures over the centuries. From the Roman's Pomona Day, to the Celtic festival of Samhain, to the Christian holidays of All Saints and All Souls Days.




Hundreds of years ago in what is now Great Britain and Northern France, lived the Celts. The Celts worshipped nature and had many gods, with the sun god as their favorite. It was "he" who commanded their work and their rest times, and who made the earth beautiful and the crops grow.

The word itself, "Halloween," actually has its origins in the Catholic Church. It comes from a contracted corruption of All Hallows Eve. November 1, "All Hollows Day" (or "All Saints Day"), is a Catholic day of observance in honor of saints. But, in the 5th century BC, in Celtic Ireland, summer officially ended on October 31. The holiday was called Samhain (sow-en), the Celtic New year.

One story says that, on that day, the disembodied spirits of all those who had died throughout the preceding year would come back in search of living bodies to possess for the next year. It was believed to be their only hope for the afterlife. The Celts believed all laws of space and time were suspended during this time, allowing the spirit world to intermingle with the living.

Naturally, the still-living did not want to be possessed. So on the night of October 31, villagers would extinguish the fires in their homes, to make them cold and undesirable. They would then dress up in all manner of ghoulish costumes and noisily paraded around the neighborhood, being as destructive as possible in order to frighten away spirits looking for bodies to possess.

Probably a better explanation of why the Celts extinguished their fires was not to discourage spirit possession, but so that all the Celtic tribes could relight their fires from a common source, the Druidic fire that was kept burning in the Middle of Ireland, at Usinach.

Some accounts tell of how the Celts would burn someone at the stake who was thought to have already been possessed, as sort of a lesson to the spirits. Other accounts of Celtic history debunk these stories as myth.

The Romans adopted the Celtic practices as their own. But in the first century AD, Samhain was assimilated into celebrations of some of the other Roman traditions that took place in October, such as their day to honor Pomona, the Roman goddess of fruit and trees. The symbol of Pomona is the apple, which might explain the origin of our modern tradition of bobbing for apples on Halloween.

With regard to the origin of Halloween, the most referred legend viewed that Halloween was came from the ancient Western European countries before the birth of Christ, which mainly includes Ireland, Scotland and Wales. These ancient Western Europeans were also called Celtic or Druids. The date of Celtic or Druids’ New Year is on November 1, and in the New Year’s eve, young peoples in Druids were gathered in a team and worn various weird masks, carried carved radish lamps and wandered between villages.

The thrust of the practices also changed over time to become more ritualized. As belief in spirit possession waned, the practice of dressing up like hobgoblins, ghosts, and witches took on a more ceremonial role.

Here is necessary to explain that the pumpkin lamp is a custom appeared lately, and there’s no pumpkin in ancient Western Europe. In fact, the Halloween is a ceremony that celebrated for the autumn’s harvest, and it also was said as a “ghost day", there’s a legend said that the souls of people who dead in the current year will return to visit the world, so live peoples should let the souls returned see the scenery of their successful harvest and give them an abundant feast. So all needfires and lamps were used to scare sway the souls of ghosts, and the same time to illuminate the return road for the ghosts and to guide them back.

Love with Crystal V – How to Identify True and False Crystal?

(1) Through Eyes:

In the forming process of natural crystal, they often have been impacted by the environment and contained a few impurities, in which when viewing in the sun we can see a touch of small and symmetrical across strips and catkin shape materials, while false crystal jewelry are generally smelted by defective quartz and glass residues, and produced through a polishing and colored up process, so in which there are no symmetrical across strips and either catkin shape materials.

(2) Licking with Tongue:

Even if in the hot dog days of summer, licking the face of natural crystal with your tongues, you can feel the cold and cool feelings, while there no such feelings about false crystals.


(3) Method of illumination:

View natural crystals erected in the sun, you can see their beautiful sheens and luster regardless of which point of view, while false crystals are incapable of.


(4) Hardness:

The hardness of natural crystal is excellent, there will no marks left on if you use a gravel scratched on it gently, if streaks were left on, it must be a fake.


(5) Checking with a Polarizer:

Showing value variations when rotated by 360-degree under a polarizer are natural crystals, while showing no changes are false pieces.


(6) Two-Color Checking:

Natural amethyst has two colors, while false amethysts have no.


(7) Checking with a Magnifying Glass:

Checking the crystal with a 10-times magnifying glass, in which if bubbles could be found, it can be judged basically as a false one.


(8) Checking with Hairs:

Putting the crystal jewelry on a hair, in which if a double shadow of the hair could be seen through your naked eyes, the crystal can be judged as a true one for natural crystal embodies with the character of birefringence namely double refraction.


(9) Detecting by a Thermal Conductivity Analyzer:

When checking the natural crystal with a thermal conductivity analyzer regulated to its green 4, the instrument’s indicative frame will rise to the yellow 2, while using it to detect false ones there won't show any rising. When the detecting area of the checked natural crystal added, the analyzer's indicative degree will rise to yellow 1.

Some Useful Tips for Buying a Wedding or Engagement Ring

Guys, buying an engagement or wedding ring is very significant since it symbolizes the commitment of spending your lives together, and perhaps she's been dreaming of receiving hers for a long time. Now that you're ready to start looking at engagement rings for your special girl, it's time to do a bit of research to make sure you pick just the right one.

Your search for the perfect engagement ring, may be time consuming due to the various designs, styles, settings and sizes. In addition, many women have a very specific idea of how their engagement ring will look. With a bit of planning, you can surprise her with a ring that will be exactly as she's always wished.

If you've never been shopping for engagement rings before, it's understandable that you feel a little blank at first, maybe you would like to get some advices from those specialists, now some diamond consultants from famous jewel brand shops would love to teach you everything you need to know about diamonds and rings, but here's a bit of an introduction and a "what to watch for" , we would like to help you find your perfect engagement ring.

Key Tips:


Below are some key tips to consider during the research stage:

1. Keep an eye out for the obvious stuff. Is she dropping hints, like making sure you notice how much she loves the look of her friend's new ring? If she is, tune in and take notes, because in those few moments she may specify exactly what she likes, and what she'd prefer to be different in a ring of her own. If you miss a hint like that, then the next few steps are even more crucial; if you're lucky though, you might pick up such useful info such as whether she prefers diamond solitaire rings, or how important the size of a diamond is to her. Maybe she'd prefer a collection of smaller jewels, or a more classic, even vintage look?

2. The next thing to consider when it's time to start ring shopping is her preference for the jewelry she already owns. Does she prefer yellow gold, or does she lean more toward white gold and silver? Are the designs of her current jewelry more modern, conservative, intricate or simple? Are there any items she never takes off, like an heirloom locket or watch? A quick scan of her current collection should tell you a lot about her preferences, and even give you an idea of what will match with the ring you choose.

3. Be sure about is the correct size of her finger. This one can get a bit tricky, especially if you're trying to surprise her. There are many jewelry websits on the internet you can turn to, many of them has an online, printable ring sizer that will make it easier for you to choose the size that will fit her just right.

4. Having a bit of background on diamonds never hurt either. Here are a few quick definitions of the "Four C's" of diamond quality, to help prepare for the next step in your buying process.

Helpful Advices:

To find your perfect engagement ring, there are more points necessary you need to take for consider, there are:

First: Budget

The first thing you should do before beginning your research is determine your budget. This will help you eliminate the irrelevant rings and diamonds, and will start making your choice a little easier.

Even if your budget is not as high as you would like it to be, know that you can always reset and add stones later on.

Second: Personal Taste

If your engagement ring is a surprise, you should do some research, the best thing you can do is to pay attention to the hints she leaves, try to observe her jewelry and notice if she likes white gold or yellow gold, big flashy jewelry or more delicate jewelry and etc. She might be obvious about it, and even if she's not meaning to. and give you nothing at all to work with, so follow the guidelines above as closely as possible. Maybe you could ask her close friends for advice always helps - they usually know.

If the engagement ring is not a surprise, or it’s an upgrade to a prior ring - we suggest making the decision with her.

Third: Learning about Diamonds

Learning about the 4 C’s - Carat, Color, Clarity and Cut, is an easy way to learn basically everything you should know before purchasing diamonds.

* Carat
The last and most obvious characteristic that a diamond is measured by is its Carat weight (abbreviated "ct.") which is usually a shown as a decimal point, e.g. 0.72 carat. The majority of diamond engagement rings are less than 0.5 carat.

* Color
The whiter the diamond, the more valuable it is. Even the slightest hint of color can have an effect on the cost of a diamond. There are also various colored diamond choices available today, but when it comes to the white ones, their quality is rated on scale from D-Z. A "D" is pure white, whereas a "Z" would be visibly yellow.

* Clarity
The clarity of a diamond refers to the number and nature of inclusions or blemishes that are visible when you view it under a microscope. Some diamond professionals refer to clarity as "purity" or "quality," but neither of those start with "C," so we'll stick with clarity.

* Cut
Nothing is more important to the brilliance and sparkle of a diamond than its cut, as it is responsible for around 40% of a diamond's price. A well cut diamond will reflect light from one facet to another and back through the top, creating a dramatic sparkling effect that only a diamond can emit. Only the most skilled diamond cutters can shape a diamond with exacting precision, to release its full brilliance, taking into account such factors as proportions, finish, and of course symmetry.

The information above listed will help you understand the cost and quality of diamonds.

Fourth: The Diamond
Now that you have learned about the 4 C’s, it’s time to choose your diamonds.

Diamonds come in many shapes and sizes. A very popular shape in diamonds is the round brilliant.

Fifth: Settings
Now that you have chosen your diamond, you can choose a setting to mount the diamond on. Some of the most popular settings for engagement rings include the solitaire, the side stones setting and the three stone setting. These are available in white gold, yellow gold and platinum.

Last, I wish you good luck and have a wonderful wedding!