Halloween will soon be upon us, and with it, ghouls, witches, and zombies will be roaming the streets.

Whatever the kids in your neighborhood choose to wear, (i.e. hopefully they’ll lean towards the government shutdown instead of Miley Cyrus), we’ve got tons of ideas to make your Halloween fun.

Check out our ideas for last minute costumes, how to set the mood for trick-or-treaters, and how to give your neighbors a good scare.

Don’t Settle for the Toilet-Paper Mummy

Whether you are spending the next week putting your Halloween costume together, or need a last minute fix, we’ve got some great ideas for you.

The best way to come up with a costume is to scour through what you’ve already got. Look in your closet, what do you see? Do you have a suit? What about something colorful? Some retro-inspired clothes? If you have craft paper, tape, scissors, glue, and some old wire hangers lying around, you’ve got endless possibilities. Here are some ideas to get you started.

If You’ve Got a Suit…

Clark Kent/Superman 

What you’ll need: A suit, glasses, a blue t-shirt, red and yellow construction paper, scissors, glue, tape.

How to: Create Superman’s “S” emblem with red and yellow construction paper using a print out from the internet (here’s one to make with construction paper, here’s the full emblem to print out). Tape the emblem to the blue shirt, and wear the blue shirt under the full suit. Unbutton the top four buttons in the suit to reveal the blue superman shirt underneath. Voila! You’ve got yourself a super costume.

Jack Skeleton

What you’ll need: A black suit, white t-shirt, black construction paper, tape, scissors, black and white face paint.

How to: If you’ve got a black suit, you’ve got yourself more than half of the Jack Skeleton costume. All you have to do to finish it is to create a “Bat” collar using construction paper, scissors, and glue (here’s a print out). Put final touches on by painting your face white with black makeup detailing. You’re ready! Now go steal Christmas.

Wendy Davis, the Filibuster Superstar

What you’ll need: A suit, sneakers, big pearls, stack of papers, black and grey construction paper, cardboard cylinder (use the inside of a paper towel roll), tape, scissors, tinfoil.

How To: The actual costume is pretty self-explanatory, but you’ll have to create a microphone. To do this, cover the cardboard cylinder in black construction paper. Then, create the top of the microphone out of a ball of tinfoil. Stick the end of the tinfoil into the cylinder “handle” that you’ve already created and secure with tape. Put your running shoes on an you’re ready to go.

Jackie Kennedy Onassis

What you’ll need: A suit, pink lipstick, pearls, a lot of hairspray, big sunglasses, gloves, a dainty purse.

How To: Make sure to get the big bouffant in your hair by slicking it back and backcombing the bottom layer.

If You’ve Got Something Colorful…

Captain Kirk from Star Trek

What you’ll need: A long sleeved v-neck red shirt, a black under shirt, black pants, construction paper, tape, scissors, colored pencils.

How to: Look online for a printout of the star trek emblem (you can find one here). Cut it out and color it in gold. Then take the black under shirt and layer it under the red shirt you have – just make sure the collar of the black shirt sticks out a bit. Put on black pants, attach your “pin” and you are ready to go!

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

What you’ll need: A green shirt, yellow construction paper, a cardboard box, 5 strips of red/purple/blue/orange cloth (choose one color), tape, glue, and scissors.

How to: Take a piece of yellow construction paper, and with a marker, draw a “six-pack” on the yellow paper. Take the paper and turn it into a soft-rectangle/oval shape by rounding off the corners. Stick this to the green shirt and you have half your costume ready.

Next, cut eye holes into one of the pieces of colorful fabric for the eye mask, tie another two pieces to your left and right upper arms, and another two pieces to your left and right wrists.

For the shell, take the cardboard box and cut out a round-rectangular shape. Secure the “shell” with string so that you can wear it like a backpack.

A Ladybug

What you’ll need: red top/dress, black leggings, black construction paper, tape, scissors, a headband, two black pipe cleaners.

How to: Take the two black pipe cleaners and twist them around the headband to create antennas. Take the black construction paper and cut out small circles for the “spots.” Stick the spots to the dress with tape, pull on your tights, and you are ready to hit up the town.

A Crayon

What you’ll need: A single color dress or shirt, black leggings, black construction paper, tape, glue, and scissors.

How to: Look online for crayon stencils; use the stencils to draw on the black construction paper. Cut out the pieces and stick them to the colorful shirt or dress with tape. To finish, create a crayon-point hat by rolling construction paper into a cone shape and tape shut. Tie a string to two ends of the pointed hat to secure it around your chin.

A Spooky House for Trick-or-Treaters

Want your house to have some spook, but you don’t have time to set up a whole elaborate theme?

No problem, you can still let trick-or-treaters in your neighborhood know that your house wants in on the fun with these last-minute decoration ideas.

Set the Mood with Music

Thanks to the invention of YouTube, you don’t need to buy spooky music. To keep from getting bored with howls and cackles on repeat, try playing these scary soundtracks. They are a lot spookier and are sure to give you goosebumps!

The Shining

Rosemary’s Baby

The Omen

The Exorcist

Jaws

Halloween

Psycho

Nightmare Before Christmas

Give Your House the Creeps without Breaking the Bank

There’s no need to go to extremes when simple scaries will do the trick.

Outdoors

Light up the Way: Line the path to your door with paper bagged candles. What you’ll need: Paper lunch bags, sand, tea light candles.

Ghost Shadows: TPing your own house? This is just pure fun! What you’ll need: double ply toilet paper

Leave the Leaves: An unkempt yard screams spooky! What you’ll need: Relaxation! Don’t bother cleaning up your yard leaves for a couple days before Halloween and let the grass grow a bit taller. Just make sure to turn on a light outside and inside your house so it still looks inviting for trick-or-treaters.

Spook them Yourself: Want to scare the wits out of your trick-or-treaters? Dress up as a scarecrow and sit outside your house with a bowl of candy and a sign that reads “We’re not home, but help yourself to candy.” Remain very still, and then when the trick-or-treaters put their hand in the bowl to grab candy, move slightly. This always gets them!

Indoors

Shut the Lights: Keep the lights in your house on so that it will be inviting for trick-or-treaters. When they ring the bell, shut off all the lights, open the door, and talk in a creepy voice. The kids will go running!

Black Bats: Do you have black construction paper? Triple up on the paper and cut out some bat shapes to paste to the walls and hang from the ceiling. You can also do the same with orange paper for pumpkins, and white paper for ghosts.

HELP!!!! Do you have red paint at home? Paint “HELP” on your door with some “blood” smeared around it for ticker-or-treaters to see as they approach your house.

Want more ideas and inspiration for Halloween? Check out our Shop Your Way Halloween page!

Profile Page Enhancements

We wanted to make your profile page dynamic while at the same time giving you the flexibility to choose what you want to see and interact with. So, with this as our mission, that’s exactly what we’ve done.

You’ll now see some new feature strips on your profile page that aggregate your recent actions into one place.

• An interest strip based on your recent searches displays items we think you might like.
• A reviews strip shows all of your reviews in one convenient place.
• A Shop’in history strip let’s you keep track of which stores you’ve Shoped’in at the most.
• A Questions & Answers strip helps you track and organize your ongoing discussions.

Community Courier – A Newspaper Boy for Shop Your Way

The new “Community Courier” app gathers the latest news from across the web, extracts novel content from Shop Your Way, and then uses the information to tag and publish content on relevant Shop Your Way pages.

You can visit the Community Courier page to see the latest trending stories across the net, or browse the many articles that are dispersed across topic, brand, and public figure pages.

Keep a lookout for the Community Courier symbol across the site to enjoy some light reading.

Introducing Leaderboards for the Best Catalogs

Lately you might have noticed something called “Catalog Leaderboards.” These leaderboards, just like sports leaderboards, surface the top of the crop to help you discover interesting content on Shop Your Way.

The top catalogs are based on views, likes, follows, and comments. You can access the Catalogs Leaderboards directly from catalogs and on your newsfeed’s right rail on the homepage.

Each Catalog Leaderboard is based on your recent activity so that you only see leaderboards that will be of interest to you.

Revamped Help Me Choose

Help Me Choose is now better than ever with some vast improvements that will get you excited about shopping!

Help Me Choose enables you to create polls with 2 – 6 products or images, and then publish the polls to the community so that others can vote and help you to choose the best one.

We’ve implemented a new story design with bigger images, clear calls for actions, and the ability to open the polls within a quick-view.

The new-quick view design helps you to stay in the moment and within the context of what you are exploring. In addition, votes and comments appear next to the options so that you can see what others have said.

Wow! We’ve got so many new features coming out that they are nearly coming out at the seams screens! Every direction, everywhere, we’ve got a whole lot of new features to share!

Don’t Lose Out on Potential Purchases

We want you to make the most of your coupons and always save on every purchase.

To ensure you get the best deals, we’ve put up a notification on your profile to alert you when your coupons are about to expire, giving you ample time to use your coupons and still save on all of your purchases.

Pictionary Your Products

Show off your most recent purchases by uploading a photo and then tagging the product’s you’ve purchased.

The new automatic quick window for images gives you an easy opportunity to tag products in your pics. Just view—add products—and share. It’s that easy!

Spread the Love with Share

ShopYourWay is all about social sharing – sending your friends and family what you think is great via email, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.

With new external share buttons easily accessible on all catalog, question, product, category, topic, brand, public figure, store, and venue pages, it’s easy and fun to connect with your friends on other social networks via the Share buttons.

Register to ShopYourWay in One Easy Step

One step—four fields—it’s easy, short, and intuitive.

We’ve created a customized and shortened registration process for those of you entering from other sites.

Quickly connect via Facebook and Twitter, and get down to having fun on ShopYourWay!

Track Your Poll Progress

Ever wonder what happened to those eight polls you answered about how to make the best BBQ? No more wondering—we’re keeping track of your polls for you.

They are now all easily accessible on your profile page.

To see how you compared in the rankings, hit up your profile page, and click on the new tab dedicated to Topical Polls. You can filter polls by department, answer additional questions, and remove past answers.

On the Mobile Front

Member Assist

Need help after store hours? Don’t get frustrated – get Member Assist! A new tweak gives you a call history and details page right at your fingertips, letting you get the assistance you need any time of day.

You can send offline message requests after store hours for store and product pages, allowing you to make choice purchases at all hours of the night.

Coupons, Coupons, and More Coupons

Another mobile innovation to get excited about: more Coupons! Yes, you read correctly, we are giving you a chance to access even more coupons with a special Shop’in mode.

These unique coupons are for use only when you Shop’in, so make sure to download the app and save on the go!

Sneak a Peek at Shop’in

Don’t have Shop’in? We’d ask what you’re waiting for, but…instead we’ve giving you a sneak peek at what you’re missing out on.

We’re making our fabulous topic pages available to you on the go no matter what. Check out topic pages on your mobile device with web pages made just for mobile browsing.

We are also giving those of you who don’t know what ShopYourWay is (what rock have you been living under?) a sneak peek at what you are missing out on. Easy access to mobile tag pages will show you the most recent activity and catalogs that everyone’s talking about.

So go ahead, check it out, but don’t wait too long – you don’t want to miss a thing!

Thousands of New Videos!

Videos are one of the most engaging and visual types of content. As part of our efforts to make the site even more fun to use, we are bringing in videos from interesting channels on AOL On, including sports, food, health, autos, pets, video games, style videos, and more!

With 5,000 videos soon to be available at your fingertips, we’re sure you’ll be watching ShopYourWay just as much as to Downton Abbey.

Got a Question? Ask Directly

There’s a new way to ask a question, and it’s directly from your profile page.

If you have a question you need answered, you can now ask it, comment on it, or answer another question by clicking on the “Questions” tab on your profile.

Create a Catalog on Your Android

We know how much you love creating catalogs – a lot! We’re now bringing this feature to mobile devices so you can create catalogs on the go.

That’s right, we’re giving you the capability to create and display catalogs directly from your Android device. You’ll also be able to easily explore other catalogs while you create, edit, and add items to your own.

It’s fun, super easy, and impossible to stop once you start (but then again, why would you want to?).

We’re making some great updates on ShopYourWay and want you to be in on the fun. Check out these new features, play around with them, and enjoy all the releases that we have in store!

Get Deals for Entire Categories

Now when you are looking for deals on ShopYourWay, you’ll be able to directly search from your newsfeed for more than one product in a long list of fabulous deals.

Browse through and compare products in a specific category to find the deal that works best for you.

Keep Track of Your Points

In order to keep you updated on how many Points you have and when they expire, we’ve created an alert about expiring Points that will appear below the rewards box on your newsfeed.

With this friendly reminder, you won’t forget about valuable Points that can save you money and earn you rewards.

New Account History Page

We know how much you love visiting your account history page, that’s why we’ve given it a new look by consolidating it into a single page with larger images. We are also keeping you better connected with the new design so that you can continue shopping and having fun with friends.

The new page emphasizes your product history, giving you important details and info about each purchase you’ve made. You’ll also be able to ask questions, get advice, help others, share, and write reviews directly from this page, making it easier to interact and stay in touch with friends.

Best of all, you’ll be able to see information about your Points by clicking the “See All” button.

In our efforts to enhance ShopYourWay as a place to build community, we are connecting the pages you manage to your page followers’ recent activity.

Now when you toggle between your profile and different pages, your page’s top navigation bar is streamlined specifically for that page. We’ve gotten rid of individual Messages, Rewards, and Cart tabs, and left what’s really important—Notifications.

When you switch page identities, you’ll now see that at the top menu bar, the only thing that’s on your menu is your page and Notifications.

Go ahead, click on the notifications button. You’ll be directed to your entire page’s recent activity, which is listed by date, and broken further down into follows, likes, and comments.  You can then click on the recent activity to see details, and even find out more info about what’s going on by clicking on “More Details.”

The new notifications is built for responsiveness, and so that you can easily see and access new activity on your page. What’s more is that you’ll even get a little notification about notifications to always keep you updated!

Rotary View is the ultimate tool for showcasing new products. By installing the app on your smartphone, you can easily capture photos of the product from all angles, and then post it on your page as a 360° story.

It’s a great way to engage your customers, and get them excited about new products, allowing you to show more and sell more.

To get Rotary View, click here to access the app’s ShopYourWay page, then click on “get it!” to download the app.

ShopYourWay and Kmart are joining forces with Sandra Lee to support Share Our Strength’s Bake Sale for the No Kid Hungry campaign, a national fundraising initiative that encourages people to host bake sales in their communities to help end childhood hunger in America.

To raise awareness and money for the program, Kmart and ShopYourWay are sponsoring Sandra Lee’s World’s Largest Bake Sale, from 10 AM – 7 PM, May 1 in Vanderbilt Hall of Grand Central Terminal in New York City.

The Bake Sale will feature co-chairs Ty Pennington, Martha Stewart, Mario Batali, Bobby Flay, Dylan Lauren, Emeril Lagasse, Guy Fieri, Buddy Valastro, Wendy Williams, and Rosanna Scotto. Over 30 popular restaurants from New York City will also be joining to help co-host the event and to shed light on the cause.

SHOP YOUR WAY REWARDS Members will receive special offers for participating in the bake sale when you Shop’in at the May 1 event. The first 100 members who Shop’in will be eligible to receive a signed copy of Sandra Lee ’s new book, Every Dish Delivers.

For those that don’t live in the tri-state area, create your own bake sale at home as part of the campaign that runs from now until October 31, 2013.

Proceeds from bake sales will benefit Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign and the Food Bank for New York City.

Post-event activities will feature an auction with items signed by the celeb chairs including a one of a kind “Bake Sale Stand” designed and created by Ty Pennington. Participants who register online to host their own Bake Sale for No Kid Hungry receive a free participant kit, and if they raise $250 or more they will be rewarded with select items from the Kmart’s exclusive Sandra by Sandra Lee collection.

For more information and tips on hosting your own bake sale, visit the Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry Bake Sale page.

It’s that time of year again! Spring is here, and with it, a whole lot of fun holidays to celebrate.

To get you in the mood for spring shopping and ready for upcoming festivities, we’ve created several great pages filled with cool products that will likely inspire you to browse, shop, and show off your creativity.

Give the Earth a Hug

Are you planning or participating in something special for Earth Day? Tell us what you’re up to and inspire others to make a difference.

You can also show the blue marble you care by checking out our Earth Day page. You’ll find helpful tips to stay green and reduce your carbon footprint, environmentally-friendly products, as well as ways to enjoy the outdoors and take a moment to appreciate this amazing planet we live on!

Fiesta Time

Everyone’s favorite fiesta-filled holiday is right around the corner! Get into the Mexican mood and plan your own fiesta filled with all things Latino by browsing the Cinco de Mayo catalogs for some creative ideas.

From piñatas, to Mexican food, to margaritas, we’ve got you covered. Got a great recipe for chili con carne? Think we’re missing something in our concoction for a delicious and refreshing margarita? Show us your culinary skills with your own catalog.

Give Mom Some Love

We all know how much hard work moms put in every day to not only keep the house running, but provide for us, show us love and guidance, and always be there for a mommy hug when we need it.

Mother’s Day is your chance to give back. Show your mom just how much you care with a special day planned with surprises and amazing gifts that are perfect for her.

On our Mother’s Day page, you’ll be able to find everything you need to make the day special. Easy and convenient, it’s loaded with gift ideas so that you don’t have to scour the web for the perfect gift.

Fresh off the Runway

Spring style is here! Yay for sunglasses, cool colors, tank tops, flowy dresses, shorts, bathing suits, sandals, and… can you tell we are really excited about spring?

We aren’t just looking forward to the warmer weather; we’re also super excited about all the glorious fashion trends seen on the runways that are now landing in stores.

We’ve done some searching and selected our own favorite spring trends.

You can check out all the hottest styles on our spring and summer fashion pages to stay up to date.

What’s even better is that you don’t have to go to the store to shop! You can do it all on ShopYourWay right from the comfort of your home—saving you time that could be spent enjoying spring!

Scour the Internet in a Single Place

Trends Reader is an interactive, responsive reading app that brings forth trending topics, fresh blogs, and the hottest articles from around the Web.

By first detecting trending topics, and then aggregating related articles, Trends Reader allows ShopYourWay users to easily find interesting, relevant, and practical daily reading material.

Reading articles on Trends Reader is a great way to stay up to date about the latest trending topics circulating the web, as well as stay informed about your personal interests.

Read Your Way across the Web

On Trends Reader you can either browse articles by selecting the categories that interest you, or search for a specific topic in the discovery search bar.

Trends Reader is especially great for avid readers; it automatically saves your past reading list so that you can easily go back to share, re-read, or refer to an article you previously browsed.

There is also a tab on Trends Reader that allows you to manage the topics you follow. Along with topics that you already selected, there are two additional lists that present you with suggested topics and the top Editor’s picks so that you can continue expanding your reading and learning.

Out of numerous categories such as consumer electronics, food and groceries, beauty, lawn and garden, health and vitamins, outdoor activities, books/music/videos, baby and toddler, fashion, and home appliances, you can easily and conveniently read your way across the web.

Ready, Set, Read!

To get started, first select the “Apps” tab on the menu bar. If you then click on the second tab labeled “Discover apps” on the drop down app menu, you’ll see Trends Reader along with a number of other apps.

Go ahead and click on Trends Reader, which will then bring you to a User Guide of how to get started.

Once you learn more about what Trends Reader is, you’ll be brought to another page and asked to select which categories you are most interested in.

By selecting different categories on this list, Trends Reader will be able to start you off with the content that you are most interested in.

So go ahead, get started to start reading!