The plus size gal used to be pretty limited in the types of costumes (or even clothing) they could wear, but there are many more options these days. Here are ten fun, and funny, plus size adult Halloween costumes:

Shrek - The costume comes with the pants and mask usually. Character acting not included.

photo credit: foundphotoslj

Flapper - Black fringe and short dresses, perfect for the fuller busted woman. Shake ya booty.

Gangster - Got your girl dressed up as the flapper? Be her gangster man.

Disney costumes - Pick a main character (and some not so main) and you can find a costume in plus sizes. Cinderella, Snow White, Prince Charming, are just a few choices.

These are just some fun ideas for costumes. There are thousands more in every plus size. This Halloween don't be a ghost, deck yourself out in a cheap costume from an online shop, like Amazon.

photo credit: Hotplate Arts

If you're looking for a beautiful color shoe to go with your wedding dress, consider silver wedding shoes. A silver shoe goes with every dress. Especially with a wedding dress.

Silver is the color of glamor, and weddings are all about glamor. Silver is unique in many ways. It can go with any color or season. It is perfect as a sandal for a summer wedding or a closed toe pump for the winter wedding. There is no limit to styles and designs. Add a few embellishments, like rhinestones or beading, and you have a beautiful wedding shoe.

When choosing a shoe for your wedding, be sure to choose a comfortable shoe. Remember you will be standing and dancing for nearly 6-8 hours on your wedding day. One thing that will help with the comfort, a few days before your wedding wear the shoe for a few hours every day to break them in. On your wedding day be sure to add slide protection to the bottom of your shoe.

photo credit: YourDreamTouch Photography

The perfect wedding dress can be made even better when you don't have to spend a lot of money on it. A great way to save money is buy using a wedding dress pattern. By using a pattern, you can have the wedding dress of your dreams without paying thousands of dollars. Keep in mind that some wedding dresses are cheaper when bought ready-made. If a dress costs only a few hundred dollars, and has a lot of bead work and applique, then the amount of work a seamstress will do on that pattern will be hours and hundreds of dollars. It could end up costing you nearly double what a ready-made dress will cost.

Casual or designer dresses are perfect candidates for a wedding dress made by pattern. You can sew it yourself, or find a seamstress who will work with you. Remember to allow a suitable period of time for the dressmaking. Some dresses can take months to complete.

There are thousands of diets, but which work? There are ways to narrow down the process of finding a diet which will work, but it's best to understand your own downfalls. For instance, I cannot resist bread, so a low carb diet isn't going to work well for me. I have a friend that's a vegetarian, so Atkins is out for her. Don't have much money? Then you'll probably want to avoid sites online that charge a fee, like The Best life and The Biggest Loser. You'll also want to avoid Weight Watchers as they have a hefty registration fee ($50) and a fee for meetings ($10-$12 per week), plus other charges. There are diets which are free. Calorie counting is one.

Counting calories is basicaly recording what you eat on paper. All you need to do is read labe.s and use an online calorie calculator, most of them are free.

The bottom line is the best diet to lose weight is one you can afford and stick with.

Some of us decide to have lavish weddings that cost more than a brand new car, and some of us women prefer to get married on a simple budget, and save the money for a brand new car. There is no wrong decision when it comes to choosing your ceremony, the important part of any wedding is the "I do".  However, it is a little tougher to find a wedding dress for a casual wedding than it is to find one for a fancier wedding.

The best part of a casual wedding dress is that it has no requirements whatsoever. Sundresses are great. So are colored dresses. Black, white, satin, silk, cotton or anything you can come up with, will work perfect for a casual, simple wedding. Many styles are available too. There are even long cotton dresses which are perfect for a casual wedding dress. There is no wrong choice for a wedding dress, as long as you feel beautiful.

photo credit: Kent Ng.

photo credit: AB Images 2009

When I go shopping, I tend to want to buy everything in sight. It's a tough world for  a woman with her eye on everything, but a pocketbook that can only support the minimum. For those of you on a limited budget, I've put together some basic tips for buying ladies clothing.

First, choose basic colors that go with many different outfits. Reds are fabulous, but can't be worn with every color. Black, white, tan and brown, however, will go with most colors. Choose these colors for skirts, pants and especially blazers.

Choose classic styles of dresses and pants. Remember those harem pants from the early 80s? Well they're coming back now so you can dig them out of your closet. However, if you don't want to closet your clothes for 30 years, it might be wise to buy simple classic styles. Basic A-line skirts, sheath dresses and one little black dress will last you decades, if taken care of well.

photo credit: chego101

If you're running out of space in your kitchen, then you are probably thinking about expanding. However, if you're interested in more counter space, you can achieve your goal without any construction. There is another type of inexpensive furniture which can add to your kitchen by giving portable counter space.

A breakfast bar is a tall table, sometimes used as a bar, with stools. The height of the table helps with preparing food, and settle next to counters. A shorter table has to be bent over or you must sit at it, in order to chop vegetables or prepare food. The bar can also double as an extra serving table or be used as an extra work center for inside the kitchen (perhaps when the kids are working on projects at the kitchen table). Whatever your extra space needs, breakfast bars relieve the need to redo a kitchen.

While it may be difficult to move around in a stiletto heel, it's much easier with a platform style heel. A pair of platforms do not have to be significantly unconventional, either. While many people conjure the image of a platform being an outrageous shoe from the 1970s, the reality is many platform shoes are made for the conventional foot and can even be worn to work at a professional office place.

Platforms on a high heel make it much easier to walk in the shoe, without the added discomfort of a stiletto. A beautiful pair of white platform boots can be worn in the early spring, as well. With a lovely black skirt, knee length boots make the outfit a little funkier. However, with a white skirt and blouse, the outfit can be very classy, depending on the skirt and blouse chosen.

When choosing a boot, be sure to check how the boot fits with socks. Baby powder can help keep the foot and leg dry when wearing knee length boots.

It may be humiliating, but aside from the dog's dignity, a costume does nothing to harm them. Dog costumes are one of the funniest and best costumes for Halloween. It's quite possible that cute dog costumes even trump baby costumes (it's a a tough call to decide). Who can resist an itty bitty dog in a devil costume?

photo credit: Morning theft

There are tons of costumes for dogs some really cute ones are the angel costumes, devil costumes, hot dog (a little trite, but still very cute) and even a princess costume.  The costumes are made to fit pets, including cats, and come in different sizes. They also are cheap at about $12.99, but there are safety concerns.

Remember that even though the air might be chilly, a dog can overheat easily in a costume. They already have fur coats to keep them warm, additional layers can dehydrate your pet.

Keep small objects off the costume. Dogs like to chew, and small objects can be dangerous.

Keep water handy for your pet if you have the costume on for longer than an hour. (or better yet take it off after a while).

Lastly, it's important to find costumes that fit properly and don't choke or stifle your pet.

Happy Halloween

photo credit: qwrrty

One year for Halloween a friend gave me this multi-colored bright fluorescent wig. I assumed it was supposed to go with a clown outfit,  either that or she thought I had really bad hair. For that Halloween I wore some old ripped up clothes and outlandish makeup and my friend's size 13 shoes (I'm about 5'4 so they looked like boats). Obviously I was a clown that year, but the following year, on Halloween, I took the wig out and studied it carefully imagining what other fun things I could do with it. Since once of the main colors was red, I redid the afro style into a flatter style and added some glitter, platforms and that year I went as a club kid. When I think about that wig, I realized what assets cheap costume wigs can be for years.

Of course if you buy a rainbow wig, it won't have as many uses, but imagine a solid color wig, for instance black. With a long curly black costume wig there are hundreds of costumes that it can be used for. Bettie Page, for one, just throw on a halter dress and some Mary Jane shoes. Other costumes that black wigs will be good for: one of the Charlie's Angels, Wonder Woman, or Snow White (tuck the longer ends up).

Cheap wigs can be used over and over again throughout the years, and are never a wasted investment.