Halloween: The Best of Martha Stewart Living [Paperback]

Martha Stewart Living Magazine (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 060980863X | ISBN-13: 978-0609808634 | Publication Date: August 28, 2001

Halloween is rivaled only by Christmas when it comes to the holidays that generate the most interest for Martha Stewart Living’s readers. Halloween is a compendium of the best Halloween ideas published in the magazine over the last decade.

To help celebrate this ghoulish holiday, the editors of Martha Stewart Living bring us Halloween, a compilation of all the best tricks and treats of the spooky season.

Organized in two sections, Halloween makes this holiday so much fun it’s scary. In “Tricking,” pranksters will find all manner of pumpkin carving, eerie lighting, and makeup and decorating ideas. “Treating” provides the recipes for having a Halloween feast or a hanted-house party and ideas for making mischief with kids.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Halloween books abound, but none is as elegantly spooky or as eerily opulent as this gorgeous guide from Martha Stewart Living. Set the scene for the ultimate Halloween party with a magical yard full of pumpkins glowing with vibrant geometrics and sparkling with Christmas lights. Welcome guests with shadow lanterns flickering with bats and haunted windows. Strew the house with chiffon ghosts and fill the air with haunting sounds. Then host a pumpkin-carving feast, a crafty party, or a ghoulish supper, and whip up eyeball highballs, croaked messieurs, and spider-web sundaes. And don't forget the creepy makeup: follow along as willing victims transform into a skeleton, mummy, and several other creatures (Martha herself becomes an astonishing black widow). Excellent directions, full recipes, beautiful photographs, and an extremely detailed source list should inspire anyone to celebrate All Hallows' Eve with style. --Amy Handy

Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Clarkson Potter (August 28, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 060980863X
• ISBN-13: 978-0609808634
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 0.3 x 10.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #342,929 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #32 in Books > Crafts, Hobbies & Home > Expert Advice > Martha Stewart

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

49 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better than you might think!, May 5, 2003

By 

Scott F. Messinger "screaminscott" (Plano, TX) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Halloween: The Best of Martha Stewart Living (Paperback)

Being a HUGE Halloween fan, I would have never thought that Martha could have any good ideas for Halloween decorating. Her decorating ideas are always so cute and cheerful, right?

How wrong I was! This book has wonderfully dark and gothic decorations that really capture the essence and magic of Halloween. Even the ideas for the kids are tasteful, without being overly cutesy.

Add to this great ideas for seasonal food (who knew you could use pumpkin in so many different ways), excellent costume ideas, and party ideas, and you have a great 'grown-up' Halloween decorating guide!

And for those reviewers here who complained that the book was only a collection of Martha's previous magazine articles: The title is "Halloween: The Best of Martha Stewart Living". The "Best of" title should have clued you in that this was not brand new material. I'm sure the audience for the book was people like me, who have never picked up Martha's magazine before. I know I buy every Halloween issue now, as well as other seasonal issues.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Halloween: The Best of Martha Stewart Living, October 22, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Halloween: The Best of Martha Stewart Living (Paperback)

This book is what I expected: a compiliation of Halloween ideas from past issues of the MSL magazine. If you've saved October issues over the last several years, you may be disappointed that this book doesn't have anything new (but it's convenient to have all these ideas in one place). I'm glad I bought this book, as I subscribed to the mag. just two years ago.

Many of the crafts in this book require patience and skill, and really are for adults and older children. I've made simplified versions of the shadow lanterns -- my family's delighted with the results.

If you're looking for easier Halloween crafts and projects, there are many wonderful books on the market. My children particulary enjoy _The Halloween Book_ by Jane Bull (DK Publishing), a kid-friendly guide to preparing for the holiday.

39 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Book or glorified magazine?, September 1, 2001

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Halloween: The Best of Martha Stewart Living (Paperback)

I found the contents of this "book" to be terrific. It is full of lovely pictures and creative, scary, unique ideas. Some of them are very labor intensive, but anyone familiar with Martha would expect that. On content alone I probably would have given it 4 1/2 or 5 stars. However, I was extremely disappointed in the format. When I opened the box my first thought was, "I don't remember ordering a magazine." That's really what this is. No, it does not have any ads and none of those annoying little subscription cards fell out of the pages but those are about the only differences. It is no thicker than a standard magazine, and in fact, not as thick as most of my issues of Marth Stewart Living. Because it is a book that should get a lot of use over the years, I can't help but expect that it will look dog-eared very quickly. I would much rather have spent a little more and gotten a hard cover version or at least a thicker book with smaller, sturdier pages.