Christmas Gifts for Squidoo Lensmasters and Squid Lovers was created:

First to honor reaching lens #200
Second to benefit Planet Gumbo and
Third and entry for the Month of Thanks Challenge.

If you have someone on your holiday list that is a Squidoo lensmaster or a Squid lover, there are 15 different categories of holiday squid gifts on the Christmas Gifts for Squidoo Lensmasters and Squid Lovers. You are sure to find something to please your favorite lensmaster or Squid Lover.

I was going to blog this week for My Green Doc Blog, but a post by Bonnie on the So You Want To Be A Giant Squid? blog spurred me on to create an entire lens.

You can view the lens and the other blog post, 12 Ways to Recycle or Reuse a Campaign Sign.

This lens benefits Heifer International and a Month of Thanks Challenge.

Image Source: Laura Hertzfeld. Obama Signs. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.

In the Green Your Halloween lens I take a look at ways to reduce, recycle and reuse a lot for your Halloween festivities. Here are just a few:

Tips for Having a Green Halloween

P.S. On October 24, Green Your Halloween is featured on the Giant Squid Community Showcase. It tied with my “Easy Halloween Costumes” lens. The lens was also nominated by Chef Keem for Lens of the Day, twice.

The lens was created as an introduction to the holiday, Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead, one often confused with Halloween. Dia de los Muertos is often compared to Halloween in part because they both have skeletons and skulls as decorations. These two fall festival celebrations are very different, with very different origins.

This festival to celebrate the unity of life and death, is considered by many to be the most important holiday of the year in Mexico and other Latin American countries.  It is the time once a year, when the spirits of loved ones who have died, return to earth to celebrate this holiday with friends and family.

Keeping Memories Alive

Many people not raised with the tradition of the Day of the Dead find solace in this lighter, cheerful, family-oriented approach to the subject of death. Dia de los Muertos is a unique way of keeping the memories alive of those who have died. It might even be a helpful tradition for someone to adopt and begin celebrating for those who have lost loved ones.

2. Healthy Halloween Treats looking at Halloween from the perspective of a parent who teaches nutrition, this lens offers tips to enjoy Halloween, stay healthy and still survive the start of Candy Season.

The key is to encourage children to eat Halloween treats that fall in the healthier end of the spectrum, while showing them how to savor their sweets in moderation.

Make sure you take a look at all of the fun lenses that have been submitted to the How Giant Squids Do Halloween Challenge.

1. Green Your Halloween - Tips on helping make your Halloween a bit Greener, more eco-friendly and healthier choices.
2. Easy Halloween Costumes - Suggestions for making Easy Halloween Costumes, helpful for anyone including the creativity challenged.

SquidBoo

The SquidBoo format was rolled out last year to help people visiting Squidoo (and elsewhere) searching for Halloween stuff and information. I’d created several lenses last year with the SquidBoo template for Halloween focusing on some scary and some informative stuff.

Last year’s SquidBoo lenses included:

• 13 Ways to Cloak Your True Identity for Halloween

• Dia de los Muertos - Day of the Dead

• The Original Phantom of the Opera
  

• Dem Dancing Skeleton Bones

• Take a Trip Underground to Visit The Catacombs….and the Dead

Tomorrow, Friday is the deadline for Giant Squids to enter the How Giant Squids Do Halloween Challenge. You still have time to make your own SquidBoo lens.

The money has been collected by saving up 5% of their total income and now they are asking for your help in giving some of it away!

Anyone who visits The $80,000 Squidoo Charity Giveaway lens has a chance to decide which of the many deserving Charities and NonProfit partners will benefit.

Here are the rules.

• Each vote counts as a $2.00 donation to the charity.
• Each person can only vote once for your Squidoo partner charities, in the poll on The $80,000 Squidoo Charity Giveaway lens page.

Vote for your favorite charity, but pick carefully. You can only vote once.

You can encourage your friends to vote also.

Vote soon. Once they get 40,000 votes, the money will be divided.

This year the United Nations is encouraging people around the world to send text messages for peace on or before 21 September.

In the US:
Text “Peace” your message to 69866

(160 characters max)

Messages collected by the UN will be presented to world leaders gathering in New York for the 63rd General Assembly from 23 September.

For this day, let us listen to the words of Ban Ki-moon, Secretary-General United Nations

On 21 September, the International Day of Peace, I call on world leaders and peoples around the world to join forces against conflict, poverty and hunger, and for all human rights for all.

and also to one of the Great Peace Activists, John Lennon:

Imagine all the People, Living Life in Peace.

You also have a chance to weigh in with your opinions on the lens and answer the question, “Do You think events such as the International Day of Peace make a difference?”

View my page on Peace Portal

Blankets for Soldiers and Veterans lens benefits Soldiers’ Angels and their different Blanket Projects. There are three different types of blankets:

Blanket of Hope - for those who have been wounded.
Blanket of Belief - for those who are currently serving.
Blanket of Gratitude - for our veterans who have already served.

If you can sew, knit, crochet consider getting involved and making one of these special gifts for those who serve, or those who have served.

Solders’ Angels even offer an option of a no sew kit, for those who don’t feel very creative or donating directly to Soldiers’ Angels.

Think about the soldiers who may be facing a Holiday season without loved ones and do what you can to participate in the Blankets for Soldiers programs. You can also donate directly to Soldiers’ Angels on the lens. If you know any crafters, pass on the information to them.

Image Source: © LawnDart. Permission granted to use this image or derivatives thereof to advertise for Soldiers’ Angels.

RMS noted:

This outstanding lens creatively uses the story of The Three Little Bears to give in depth directions on how to get your photos to look just right when using the polaroid module to feature them.

Comfortdoc’s great lens includes information about photo size, adding borders to your image and making composite images. It also describes the best ways to include copyright and photo credit for the pictures you are displaying in the module and supplies links to online sites where you can easily polaroidize (and add graphics) your own photos.

How to Use the Polaroid Module is also a member of  The Answer Deck where the Giants share their best tips and advice with the Squidoo.com community.

This lens was was fun to do. I was inspired by seeing too many of images being not quite right and messing up otherwise very nice lenses.

I hope that lensmasters get inspired after reading this lens to use this fun module.