The Halloween Lifestyle

I am working very hard on expanding The Halloween Honey beyond just a blog of me ranting and raving about things I like.  I want my rants and raves to have a sense of organization and other neat things besides just blogging.  I love to blog, but it is my goal and ambition to make The Halloween Honey website something different.

I want to make The Halloween Honey website something I have coined "a Halloween Lifestyle website."  Not unlike Gwyenth Paltrow's Goop website, but with less $300 dollar pajamas for children and no sense of how real people in the real world live (not say Gwyneth isn't a real person, but I am pretty sure she is mostly made up of million dollar bills, dove feathers and Truvia.)  What is a "Halloween Lifestyle" you ask?  Well, here is what my brain thinks it is:  It's not goth, or "emo" (is that still a thing?  That became popular with the kids after I graduated from high school) even though it can be!   People who enjoy and live a "Halloween Lifestyle" are those who enjoys all the things other people have a passing interest in during the month of October all year round.  We love ghost stories, hauntings, witches, zombies, fairies and yes, even those fanged, occasionally sparkly bloodsuckers, cemeteries, history and, of course, costumes, make-up, wigs and anything else that reminds you of Halloween (black cats!  Pumpkins!  Candy!) I also want it to be kind of a tribute to the holiday and its history and heritage.  I want a there to be a bit of a dedication to Halloween's pagan roots and to those who celebrate it.  Also, the Halloween Honey website will be a great fan of all things pop culture that also falls under the umbrella of The Halloween Lifestyle, since I am such a huge consumer of pop culture (that's a fancy way of saying "I watch a lot of TV.")

In my mind, this is all very clear.  There will be a great front page, and tabs bringing you to other pages on your topic of interest with new content on a daily basis.  I have enlisted a great friend of mine, Kristi, a graphic designer to help me build my site, and who understands my vision in mind.  I bought a domain name, and now I am ready to go!  Almost.  I am really struggling with finding a website building software or site that I like and/or am willing to pay additional money for since I already put some cash out to buy the domain name.  My brother-in-law helped me build a website for a dog-walking business I run during the winter months last year, and it served it's purpose very well, but it was very basic and very business like.  I want halloweenhoney.com to be more fun, more multi-media, more interactive.

I would love to start out with a free design site or software, just to test the waters and see what kind of reception I get, but I fear if I spend a little dough I won't get everything I want off the bat and then I won't be happy with the content and be hesitant to put it out in to the online universe.  I heard that WordPress is a great jumping point for website design but I either can't download the free version of it, or I have to pay.  I would use the same site I used to build my dog-walking site (ahem, girlforallseasonsanoka.com, btw) but like I said, very basic.  Kristi told me Tumblr offers a website building template that you can use with your purchased .com domain name.  I may look in to that.

I just have to keep in mind that I probably won't get everything I want right away, but I have a great graphic designer in my corner and unlimited (if sometimes frustrating) online resources to try and figure this out.

Kristi is coming over tomorrow and we are going to scheme away on The Halloween Honey website!  I cannot wait until we get going on this and I cannot wait to share it with you all!

*Also, I intend on having guest bloggers on all the topics listed above eventually, so if you are interested, totally let me know! For now, you can reach me at halloweenhoney@yahoo.com, on Twitter @Halloween_Honey or on Facebook!