Renae Meisner of Rapid City would like everyone to get into the spirit of Halloween. As avid Halloween enthusiasts, she and her husband, Jim, have hosted Halloween parties for 25 years.

"We both just really enjoy Halloween. We think it's fun and like to dress up," she said.

Since most people have difficulty coming up with a costume idea, she said she has changed her costume parties over the years to become theme parties.

"We let people know on the invitation what the theme is. It's so much easier that way. A lot of people don't want to dress up because they can't come up with an idea. If they have the idea, then they just run with it," she said.

Some of her past themes included cross-dressers, old people, hippies and pirates. This year's theme is famous dead people, she said.

"One year we did TV commercials. Once you really start brainstorming, it's easy to come up with your own ideas," she said.

A party invitee once came dressed as a Jiffy Pop popcorn pan, complete with a long silver handle and a hair dryer to blow up his silver foil-covered mid-section.

For fun, Meisner covers a large mirror in her house with a collage of hundreds of photos from previous Halloweens. Among the photos is a particularly special one signed by watercolor artist Jon Crane. He never attended one of the Meisners' parties, but his likeness did.

"It was the year that he painted the giant national Christmas tree. Everyone was talking about it, so I decided to go as Jon Crane," Meisner said. Not knowing what Crane looked like, she called him on the telephone and asked him to describe himself to her, and he graciously obliged.

"He told me what he looked like, and I made a white beard, got an artist palette and paint shirt and I was Jon Crane," she said. Her husband dressed as a giant Christmas tree, complete with lights.

To come up with ideas, Meisner recommends browsing in secondhand stores. "We go a lot to secondhand stores and pick out bits and pieces. If you're going to be a witch, most certainly find a black dress. You will feel comfortable cutting up a secondhand dress," she said.

If all else fails, you can rent costumes. "They take care of you from head to toe. We have done that, too," she said.

Tracie Veazey of Rapid City also channels her inner designer every Halloween. Her ideas are geared toward pleasing her three children: 12-year-old Max, 10-year-old Anna and 5-year-old Jack.

Veazey's sewing machine sits idle for 11 months out of the year until it's time to think about trick-or-treating. She said her mother used to make her costumes, and she wanted to do the same for her own children.

When her two older children were very little, she once dressed one as a bag of M&M Minis and the other as a Hershey's Kiss.

She created the bag of M&Ms by hot-gluing felt cut-out circles with Ms on them to a long sheet of felt.

When the Disney movie "Hercules" came out, Max was Hercules, and Anna was Megora.

"Those were fun when I could make them as sets," she said.

Other costumes have included Batman and Catwoman, a princess, a football player, a mermaid and a pirate. Jack will be a spider this year, but he still has fun playing in last year's lion costume.

Veazey said coming up with costume ideas was a lot easier when the children were younger.

"They didn't have any opinions, or if they did, they were easily swayed," she said. She said costume choices change quite a bit as they get older.

The older two now choose their own costumes and go as very interesting characters, she said. Last year she made a devil costume for her daughter, and Max wanted to be Slash from Guns N' Roses. "I was curious how he knew about him. I found out he's a featured guitarist on 'Guitar Hero 3.'"

She said she bought a wig and a hat and pieced them together with other clothes they already had.

"Some years I'm much more frugal than others. It depends on where we are, and if we have some expendable income," she said.

Some of her designs come from sewing patterns, other don't require any sewing. She especially likes working with felt.

"You don't have to sew the edges. It's the simplest thing. You can just cut it in the shape you need," she said.

Jack Wellman, owner of Party America, said some of the best costumes are achieved simply by accessorizing. A pirate costume can be as easy as starting with a pair of blue jeans and adding a pirate's hat and a pirate's shirt, he said.

A cape and some makeup can be the start of a great Dracula costume. "Put those together with some temporary color hair spray, and you can have a black, slicked-back Dracula hairstyle," he said.

Whatever you decide to do for Halloween, Meisner suggests getting in the spirit of the holiday.

"Parties are always much more fun if you have a costume than if you don't," she said.