Halloween is nearly here, and let's face it: where any sort of party catering is concerned, we've all got a friend who is craftier, more talented in the kitchen and better able to work within limitations than we are. And in my case, that friend is a very gifted, amazingly arty and very creative...vegan.

Year after year, she puts me to shame on halloween with her dairy-free treats and each year I promise to myself that I'll come up with something equally impressive next time. So, I've decided to start simple, and whip up some vegan halloween cupcakes that might just rival hers. I'll be following a vegan recipe and decorating mine to look like these ones (including my favourite: the very simple yet effective 'ghost') made by vegan foodie extraordinaire Amy. Then I'll posting the evidence here! [Via Crafty Crafty]

Read on for the basic vegan cupcake recipe

Looking for some fun and uplifting entertainment tonight that might leave you with some useful life-skills? Twiggy's your woman then, as she'll be teaming up with Lauren Laverne for the first in a series of shows about clothes swapping parties tonight, as part of the BBC's 'Thread' initiative. Follow the jump to find out more about the show and where to find info on hosting the best clothes swap ever.

In most corners of the media, money-saving has already eclipsed planet-saving, which has suddenly become yesterday's news, leading many to believe that the two concerns are worlds apart. But they couldn't be more wrong, because being green is all about resourcefulness, economy and frugality -- and not necessarily about buying expensive organic chicken. Follow the jump to find out some really useful ways of saving money and the environment at the same time.

Petrol blue is a great colour for autumn and Edun's military shirt is the perfect shade. Team with a grey suit for an updated smart look, or with straight-leg jeans a grey cardigan and mustard scarf for a casual outfit that will get you nods of approval.

It's made from 100% Madagascan cotton and features double front pockets and shoulder lapels for definition, snap it up for £130 from Adili.

Just a quick heads-up about the fantastic prize we're offering to any green beauty addicts out there, courtesy of our friends at Big Green Smile who want to offer you a bumper beauty pack worth £52. The site has recently expanded its body and skincare range to include many of our favourite hippy brands, including Jason, Yes To Carrots and Weleda.

Follow the jump to find out how to enter...

So we've seen all sorts of takes on Anya Hindmarch's infamous eco-tote - but this one by Goodone takes the cake really. Full of 'tude, no one will mess with you in the supermarket queue when you're holding this bag! Made of organic cotton cloth, this fairly-traded bag wants to be your new shopping companion...

Daniel Sung, editor of Tech Digest, writes:

If you're having a bit of a Spring clean, then I should remind you that you're running on Southern hemisphere time. Now that I've done that, I should point you in the direction of AbundaTrade.com where you can recycle your old CDs into gadgets.

It's all quite simple and actually rather complicated. Every CD is worth one credit assuming it plays and has some sort of current market value. If not, you get either half or a quarter of a credit. If it comes without its box or the artwork, you may get slightly less too.

I'm not advocating smoking or illicit substances, but instead I'm praising the ingenuity of the creator of this bong. It would have been so easy just to chuck his old NES controller. But no, he refused to waste resources and by dint of some hose and and a drill he created a workable bong. Sadly the controller has now ceased to work, but hey, we now have a new product.

[via Shiny Shiny]

Committed vegan and not-afraid-to-get-her-hands-bloody type Chrisse Hynde (left, click image to enlarge) has recently done a Q&A with the delightfully-monikered Fish & Chimps, PETA Europe's very own blog.

The conversation doesn't contain a great many surprises for those familar with The Pretenders frontwoman's career as an activist, although it is interesting to hear her restate that her music career is of secondary importance in her life:

"I consider myself an animal activist first and my music as more of a hobby that gives me a platform to fight for animals."

Hynde goes on to select the highlights of her life as an animal activist and share her views on PETA's "provactive" tactics, while over on PETA's main site are a couple of new Pretenders tracks - from new album Break Up The Concrete - available for streaming.

Read the PETA blog Q&A here

Check out The Pretenders' new tracks here

Duncan at our gadget-y neighbour site Tech Digest has taken a look at the claims made by the makers of Carbon Hero - a device intended to record a person's carbon usage by monitoring their mobile phone signal - and weighed them up. He's not too impressed:

Carbon footprints are difficult. They've received a lot of attention in the press, and they're firmly stamped (no pun intended) on the public psyche, but they're not actually very accurate. Given the complexity of power generation in modern life, it's something that's incredibly difficult to calculate, and very easy to underestimate.

This device, the Carbon Hero, was designed by an art graduate named Andreas Zachariah. It tracks your phone signal, and if you're moving at train-ish speed, on a train track, then it assumes you're on a train, works out the distance you travel, and gives you a number for your carbon footprint. Simple, right? Well, there's about a billion things wrong with the idea.

Here I am again, prying into my colleagues' lives to find out who is the greenest of them all. When I asked beauty editor Zara to take part, she warned me that she most certainly would not be claiming that title any time soon. But is her lifestyle as bad as she thinks? Watch the video to find out...

Stylish and sexy vegan footwear has become something of an epidemic since Natalie Portman helped kick-start the trend last winter. This is the second new range I've heard about in a week, and it's really exciting to see designers getting into this market. These rather Jackson Pollock-esque paint spattered beauties are part of a new range from Olsen Haus, a 'pure vegan' company that is ethical to the core.

Related: Nina Dolcetti fab eco footwear | Hot, handmade eco chic shoes by Hetty Rose

If you're not normally into the Goth look, but want to change your image for Halloween, you don't need to buy anything new. Plenty of full-time gofficks are trying to rid themselves of old gear all the time, and eBay is a good place to find it going cheap. Here are a few fun items I found for a quick goth makeover.

Follow the jump for details...

For a while, I sort of accepted that for unconventional, eco-friendly vehicles, looking weird was part of the course. If we're going to revolutionise private transport, why not make it look a bit more interesting at the same time? And get rid of those awful 'vroom vroom' noises too. But the designs for green vehicles have been getting odder and odder, and when one finally got mistaken for a UFO last month, I started to question the sanity behind this. Surely we should be encouraging people to drive these thing, not putting them at risk of funny looks, taunting, arrest or even alien abduction!

Click on the picture below to see some more of the whackiest eco vehicles out there -- with 'out there' being the operative phrase...

We can't all be nutrition scientists, so claims about organic food actually being better for us are best left to the experts, and read with interest whenever they emerge. But what about the taste? We can all have an opinion on that...for example, following a last minute decision at the checkout earlier this week I now know that organic Weetabix tastes massively better than the original sort which I've been eating all my life.