Are you a Giant Squid with a great Purple Star deserving lens?  Send it to us at purplestar@squidoo.com.  Or nominate a worthy lens by another Giant Squid by sending the link to the same address.  If you’d like your comments published please say so with your nomination. 

Yes, it’s that wonderful time of year again when all of our thoughts turn to this year’s resolutions and last year’s taxes.

Luckily your friendly Squidoo Giants have you covered on both ends.

Before getting started with either, be sure to take a look at Healthy New Year Resolutions by Comfortdoc and 2008 Tax Return for Self Employment by Lakeerieartists.

You’ll find good suggestions at both of these truly helpful lenses!

“I wish we could put up some of the Christmas spirit in jars and open a jar of it every month.” Harlan Miller

How to Make a Christmas Spirit Jar by Giant lensmaster Comfortdoc shows you how you can do just that!

The idea is quite simple, the sentiment is perfect, and you can make these Christmas spirit jars for yourself or as unique gifts for your friends and family.

Comfortdoc teaches you how to make these wonderful Christmas spirit filled jars and provides ideas and inspiration to help you make a different one for everyone you know.

Who couldn’t use a little more Christmas spirit right about now? 

How to Make a Christmas Spirit Jar

“Operation Helmet is a 100% volunteer, non-partisan, charitable organization. They currently provides needed helmet upgrade kits free of charge to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as to those ordered to deploy in the near future. These pad inserts are saving the lives of soldiers everyday.”

And since it’s Halloween I thought I’d share this interesting Halloween recipe lens that I found amongst the contest entries.  Halloween Recipe, Stuffed Pumpkins is an entire meal served in a pumpkin!  How cool is that?

REMINDER:  It’s the end of the month!  The contest plexo is being emptied.  We’ll be starting a new month with all new equal chances to get your lenses showcased and voted for!

Stop by today to enter!  Good Luck!

Choose Your Favorite Giant Lens Contest

Happy Halloween!

At Green Your Halloween find out how you can celebrate Halloween the eco-friendly way.  This awesome lens contains information and ideas for recycling Halloween costumes, green Halloween decorating, and healthy green foods your family will love.

Easy Halloween Costumes is jam-packed with fast, easy, and last minute Halloween costume ideas for you and your child.  If you’re in need of a quick costume, don’t miss this great lens!

Inspired by the Squidoo Answer Deck, where Giant Lensmasters share their best tips for lens building, The Squidoo Charity Answer Deck contains hand-selected useful lenses, chosen and approved by the Squidoo Activists for people interested in promoting or raising funds for charity. 

Be sure to bookmark this one people!  It contains a goldmine of information and excellent ideas to help you make the most of all of your charitable lenses.

And speaking of charitable lenses, did you know the $80,000.00 Squidoo Charity Giveaway quota has already been met? 

You guys are awesome!

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.

There’s only one week left to get your votes in!

As I mentioned last week, there will be some changes made to how the weekly Choose Your Favorite Giant Lens contest is run and I’m letting you decide.  Go here to get your votes in today! 

The new rules will begin next win!

Kirsti A. Dyer
a.k.a. Comfortdoc

Anniversaries of tragic events can be difficult times for those who lost loved ones and those who lived through the events. With the 7th anniversary of September 11th coming up this week I have a few lenses that may be helpful in providing some positive ways of remembering this tragic event.

My Good Deed – is a nonprofit that is working to turn 9/11 into a national day of service and compassion as a way of remembering those who were lost on September 11, 2001. You can volunteer, donate to a cause, or perform another good deed of your own choosing. Whatever you decide to do be sure to share it with the Squidoo community on the My Good Deed lens.

Remember September Mail Art Project – is another way to Remember. This creative, commemorative mail art project was developed by Gail Ellspermann in 2002. All you need to do is decorate an envelope and send it to the address. Gail is hoping that the project eventually is taken over by the 9/11 Museum in New York.

If you are one of those who would rather crawl under a rock on that day, the Anniversary Response lens may help you understand why and offer some suggestions for ways of making it through the day.

I am also going to be a guest on 9/11 on Dr. Sally Witt’s BlogTalk Radio Show for a 9/11 Rememberance and Healing show as a Bereavement Specialist, most likely discussing information from the Anniversary Reaction lens

Believe it or not Hollywood musicals are once again on the upswing.  You can call me old-fashioned but I do love a good musical.  That’s why when I saw two new musicals at the top of today’s contest results I just had to call it a draw and award both with a featured spot at the Showcase.

The actual (at the top of the list) winner this week is Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog by none other than Giant lensmaster thefluffanutta.  His fabulously laid out lens contains all you need to know to be able to find and watch the “first ever superhero musical” including dates of initial internet broadcasts (act three starts tomorrow) a video of the trailer, links to the site, and information on how you can purchase a copy for yourself.

You might be asking, If Fluff won, why am I featuring two lenses?  Well . . . to be honest . . . I’m actually featuring 4.  Let me explain.  Although Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog did come out on top, the next three runner-up lenses were all created by the same lensmaster, about the same movie.  When added together, those 3 lenses received more winning votes than we’ve ever had since we started this contest.  I just couldn’t ignore numbers like that!

And so the co-winner of this week’s Choose Your Favorite Giant Lens Contest is Mamma Mia! The Movie by Giant lensmaster Comfortdoc.

MammaMia! The Movie, which opens today by the way, is being called the Feel Good cinema event of the summer and I have to tell you that Comfordoc has really captured the joyous good nature of this film in her lenses.

Her fabulous Squidflix lens, Momma Mia! The Movie gives you information, background, song track lisitings, a peek at the video trailer, news, and everything else you’ll need to know about Momma Mia! The Movie.   Her lens,  Mamma Mia! The Movie, the Music, The Musical, The Song is another outstanding lens where you can watch video clips, vote in some fun polls and just really enjoy yourself while you learn even more, and her Host a Mamma Mia Party is just a great idea to bring the good time feel and upbeat music of ABBA found in this awesome movie directly into your home!

Check out all of the above musical movie lenses and you’ll know why I’ve given them all winning status in the contest this week!