This Star Wars’ AT-AT costume for a dog looks great. Katie Mello, who works as a stop-motion character fabricator at LAIKA/house, made this for her greyhound named Bones. Read more about it here. [Craft]

Happy Halloween!

Here’s a great one from Southern Living–turn a pumpkin into a cooler for drinks.

The idea is simple: cut the top off a wide pumpkin, scoop out the seeds, line with plastic, fill with ice, and pop in the drinks. Perfect for a Halloween party, or any other holiday party, too.

Martha Stewart has a how-to on making Haloween Pumpkin Creatures. It goes over how to carve a pumpkin to make all kinds of animals, like a porcupine:

Or a cat:

Or a snake:

And more! Great ideas.

When I graduated from college, I learned I was tens of thousands of dollars in debt. Here I was just starting out in life, yet I was heavily in debt and had to start paying right away. It was depressing and scary.

So I feel for the people in this NPR piece who are struggling with student-loan debt. Some of them owe $80,000 or $100,000. While that’s excessive, the burden for paying for college is worse than when I was in school, and the price of education is still going up.

It took me 10 years to pay off my school debt. I don’t regret going into debt for my education–getting a college degree is one of the best things you can do for yourself–but I could have owed much less if I had gone about things differently.

So learn from my mistakes. Here are 5 Ways To Save Money In College:

1. Pay Attention To The Loan Terms. Don’t just sign papers. Try to get loans that have low interest rates, or better yet, no interest rates–they do exist for student debt. Understands the terms of the loan: what are the monthly payments? What are the penalties if you don’t pay? How long can you defer payment after you graduate? It’s important to know what you’re paying for school, if for no other reason that it’s a motivator to do well in class. You certainly won’t want to pay for the same class twice.

2. Reconsider The Dorms. Let me put it this way: when I graduated from college, the vast proportion of my debt was from living in the dorms. Had I gone right to living in a house with roommates, as I did later in college, I would have had a LOT less debt to deal with. There are benefits to staying in the dorms, and many schools require you stay there your first year (although I find that rules are usually negotiable), but dorms are often overpriced for what you get. You may do better living off-campus, so do a cost comparison.

3. Cut The Meal Plan. Make sure you are paying for what you will actually eat. My first year, I paid for eating in the cafeteria three times a day when I really just ate there once. That was a waste of money. Also, consider feeding yourself–a microwave and a small fridge (if allowed in the dorms) may be cheaper than a meal plan.

4. Be Smart About Books. Textbooks are notoriously expensive, so don’t just buy them in the student bookstore. Shop around. Most college towns have bookstores that sell used textbooks for cheaper than the school, and there are websites that sell used textbooks for a fraction of the retail price. There are other options too–you can share a book with a classmate or get it out of the library, although this can be difficult and annoying during exam times. Another option, and this worked for me, is to wait until you get to the class to see what the professor actually uses. Many times, they will assign books that they barely glance at during the class, so wait to see what the syllabus says before purchasing. It can save a surprising amount of money.

5. Don’t Procrastinate. Late fees. Parking fees. Handing in student aid forms after the deadline passes. Not getting a scholarship because you didn’t apply in time. All these things have one thing in common: procrastination. And procrastination is expensive. I racked up hundreds of dollars in parking fees because I was too lazy to get the change I needed to pay the parking meters. Eliminating procrastination can save thousands over the course of a college education–and isn’t a bad policy for studying, either.

So there are my tips. What tips do you have for saving money in college?

This is so cute. Child’s Own Studio has a service where they will take your child’s drawing and make it into a custom soft toy. They look pretty close to the drawing too:

Learn more here.

The other day, I called my mom and asked her about a cookie I remembered eating when I was a kid. It had an oatmeal-cookie-type mixture on the top and bottom and fruit in the middle.

My mom knew exactly what I was talking about. They’re called Matrimonial Cakes. I have no idea why they are called that–Oat Squares or Oat Bars would be better–but apparently Matrimonial Cakes are pretty old. My great grandmother made this recipe.

Now that I’ve made Matrimonial Cakes, I’m glad to know about them. They use ingredients I commonly have in the pantry and are a great way to use up old fruit or, in this case, boysenberry jam. With the oats and fruit, they are slightly healthier than other cookies, although the amount of butter throws that off a bit. In any case, they’re nice with coffee in the morning too.

Matrimonial Cakes

Ingredients:

1 1/2 c flour
1 c brown sugar
1 1/2 c rolled oats
3/4 c butter, softened
1 tsp baking soda
Pinch salt

1 c jam, any kind

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

In a bowl, mix together all the ingredients except the jam. Make sure the butter is evenly distributed throughout the oat mixture.

In a 9X9 square pan, press half the oat mixture into the bottom. Spread the jam on the top, and then press the rest of the oat mixture on top of that.

Cook for 40 minutes. When completely cool, cut into bars. Enjoy!

Kate on Minieco made this spiffy Pac-Man garland as a Halloween decoration. It’s just a matter of cutting out the template from her site on black paper, attach white plastic eyes, and hang them on a string.

It’s nice to see a Halloween decoration that is different but not too scary. If you haven’t made your house festive for the season yet–I haven’t!–this might be a good way to go.

If you’ve ever had trouble calculating where the sun hits your house, the SunCalc might help. This Google Maps hack by Vladimir Agafonkin tracts the position of the sun over a location at any point in the year at any time from sunrise to sunset. From the site:

The thin orange curve is the current sun trajectory, and the yellow area around is the variation of sun trajectories during the year. The closer a point is to the center, the higher is the sun above the horizon.

This can be helpful when planting a garden or thinking about heating and cooling your house. Plus it’s fun to play with. [Root Simple]

Here’s a great project from Curbly: turn a filing cabinet into a rolling kitchen cart. Chrisjob took an old filing cabinet and added wheels, a butcher block top, and towel racks on the side. He even painted it a spiffy shade of blue.

Since kitchen carts are often the wrong size, this is a great way to customize one the way you want. File cabinets are regularly available in thrift stores, too. [Apartment Therapy]

I grew pumpkins this year, but to tell the truth, I’m tired of the usual recipes: pumpkin soup, pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread, etc. So here are five new things to do with pumpkin:

Savory Stuffed Pumpkin. I’ve long roasted squash in the oven as a side, but I’ve never done this, which is to fill the center of the pumpkin with bread, cheese, cream, and other ingredients and then cook in the oven for 20 minutes. It looks pretty good!

Pumpkin Pasta looks like it would be versatile and delicious. You could dress it up with a brown butter sauce or an herb pesto. The only thing I would change the recipe is to skip the semolina flour and just use all-purpose flour instead.

My own pumpkin ice cream was a new recipe this year and I was pleased with how it came out. I described it as “creamy, icy pumpkin pie filling,” and darn if that isn’t pretty darn close.

Savory Pumpkin Crackers use both the pumpkin and the pumpkin seeds in one tasty-looking gourmet snack. Topped with a nice spreadable cheese, these look like they would impress your guests.

Finally, if you haven’t tried it, Pumpkin Pie Waffles are a great way to bring some fall flavors into your breakfast. Delicious!

What’s your favorite pumpkin recipe?