Hannah Montana hangs out here, and Bob the Builder, too - both sharing space with brides and hippies, rock stars and tourists, doctors and nurses. They’re all a dime a dozen on the racks of Goodwill stores.

“October is our busiest month at Goodwill stores,” said Lauren Lawson, representative of Goodwill Industries International. Not only do the stores carry new, packaged costumes for around $13, the rows and rows of clothing, shoes and boots, hats, belts, bags, linens and kiddie stuff need nothing but a bit of creativity to turn them into the coolest costumes on the street.

“With the economy this year, the state it’s in, no one wants to go out and spend $40 or $50 on something they’re going to wear exactly once,” said Juli Lundberg, a regional Goodwill representative. Plus, you’ll give to Goodwill’s good cause: job training programs for those who need help.

Need ideas? Try a few of these:

• Old prom gown? Make a gold cardboard Oscar statuette, pile your hair on top of your head and go as a red carpet winner. Or cut the dress down for a little girl’s princess costume.
• Argyle vest? White button-down shirt? Go prep!

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Toys’R'Us has announced its 2008 Hot Toy list, all the toys its experts believe will top kids’ wish lists this holiday season. From the overall list, the “Fabulous 15″ were selected to represent the very best toys of the season.

But we can’t give them to you all at once. That would spoil the surprise.

So here are five, in alphabetical order. Next week, we’ll let you see the rest of what’s going to be under the tree.

50’s Diner from Step2

A retro-themed diner that transports them behind the grill at a local hot spot from the 1950s. This kitchen features everything needed to prepare an imaginary meal and serve customers - just like a real diner - including an oven, grill, dishes, silverware, cups, spatula, ice cream  and more. There’s ample seating for customers at a retro-style tabletop with a working jukebox that plays three 50’s-style tunes. Ages 2 and up.

Bakubelt Action Kit from Spin Master

Bakugan Battle Brawlers is the latest craze among young boys, bringing a new component to trading card game play by adding plastic marbles (Bakugan Battle Brawlers) that “explode” to reveal mini-figures when they roll onto a metal Gate Card. Now, kids can prepare for battle with the Bakubelt Action Kit, featuring a Bakubelt, a Bakuclip that allows kids to reach for their Battle Brawlers without ever taking their eyes off the game, as well as other necessary battle gear. Ages 5 and up.

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We absolutely adore Project Runway’s torturous insistence on throwing kinks into the machinery just when the designers are about to die from creative exhaustion. Starting to despise one another? Even better: It ups the tears-and-snippy-comments-per-square-inch ratio.

But hello, if you are a finalist and you don’t expect last-minute anguish, you don’t come prepared with three ideas crib-noted on your hand just for emergencies, and you don’t automatically assume that when it’s bad, it’s going to get worse - Grow up! Watch more TV!

Wednesday’s was the first of Project Runway’s two-part finale with finalists Jerell (who won last week’s evening gown challenge), Leanne, Korto and Kenley (that’s her design below left). Part two of the finale airs next Wednesday night). The show followed a structure now familiar to obsessive fans: Tim Gunn flies around the country visiting each of the finalists’ home studios to see their collections in progress, swoons over some, scowls over others, meets everyone’s families in only the kindest way, and then drives off in a strategically product-placed Saturn into the sunset.

Then the designers all show up in New York, where we see their collections, find out who listened to Tim and who didn’t, and watch everyone get teary over the fact that This Is New York Fashion Week, and they have dreamed of it their entire lives.

For the first time this season, the designers’ final collections had to include a wedding dress. (Just like real designers!) The last-minute challenge: Design a bridesmaid dress to accompany the wedding gown, and do it for $150 by midnight. Surprise! This is how we will get from four designers down to three, as long as Kenley doesn’t kill Korto first.

Judges Heidi Klum, Michael Kors and Nina Garcia swoon for Leanne’s sculptured wedding dress and pale blue bridesmaid dress, praise and berate Kenley’s short, feather-covered gown (above left), call Korto’s wildly ruched gown (pictured at the top) “overworked,” and throw out adjectives like “messy,” “garish” and “hog wild” about  Jerell’s dresses. We expected this earlier, actually, when Jerell did not take Tim’s advice! (Fool! Watch more TV! )

In the end, that’s the way it goes, with Jerell getting auf’d and an all-femme finale in the wings for next week.

 Simplicity is the keynote of all true elegance – Coco Chanel, 1923

No two women emphasize that stylish point better than potential first ladies Cindy McCain and Michelle Obama - especially when it comes to accessorizing.

Their clothing choices may differ, but both stick with simple, striking diamond stud or pearl earrings, chunky pearl or other necklaces and brooches or pins. Both echo Jackie Kennedy’s style of minimal accessorizing.

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There’s plenty going on in The Wizard of Oz, with all its plots, subplots, flying monkeys, forces of good and evil, small yappy dogs. But we choose to focus on the shoes. Not the ruby red slippers - they’ve already had their day in the sun. We’re obsessing about the Wicked Witch of the West’s footwear, and how they seem to have struck a few marketing deals of their own.

Like this candy dish from Sur la table, all sweet and full of treats ($15). Set it by the front door on Halloween night, and watch those trick-or-treaters’ eyes open wide.

Send your little goblins out into the night with Current catalog’s imaginative treat bags (above), shaped like witches’ boots with wild heels in multiple colors (6 sacks, $7). After they come back all sticky and sweet, just hand them these hand towels that certify the Witch Is In (and she likes purple, $3, above right).

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We ask a lot of our pajamas. We must love sleeping in them, which means none of that silky, filmy, lacy stuff (cue audible sigh from significant other), but we have to love working in them. Yes, lots of us work at home, and we’ve taken casual Fridays to a whole new level. Our pajamas must be team players. Professionals. Bad jammies = distracted, squirmy, sub-par performance: inappropriate in the workplace.

To that end, we’ve gone out and found the eight cutest home-a-holic pajamas we could.  

1. These jammies would probably do your Power Point presentation for you. Natori Marisa pajama set at Saks Fifth Avenue, in black with long sleeves and a ruched top, ($160, above left).

2. Pajama Board member Victoria’s Secret, proving it can hang with the work-at-home crowd: Cotton Mayfair pajamas, with a button-front top, drawstring pants and prints you could wear to Kinko’s ($39, above right).

3. There are days when nothing but black will do. Nordstrom’s is on the job with Ralph Lauren’s Berkeley knit pajama set. It’s practically guarantees a good day at the laptop ($78, above left).

4. Oprah Magazine gave a nod to Sleepyheads’ Fresh ‘n’ Funky cherries lounger pajama, all bright in poplin cotton. Roll up your sleeves and go over tomorrow’s script ($55, above right).

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The thing about Halloween is this: We’re all in on the game. We know the front yard is not really a cemetery, the skeleton on the front porch is plastic, the eyeballs in the bowl are peeled grapes and the punch-bowl fog is caused by dry ice.

Yet, we play along, because illusion is fun and Halloween still reminds us of plastic buckets full of candy and all that jumpy frivolity.

Any stage director knows that lighting is half the battle. If you can create a foreboding darkness sprinkled with flickering light, all those ghoulies and ghosties seem twice as real. Begin by preying on your guests’ scary-movie memories: Hang a lighted Bates Motel sign in the yard, preferably creaking in an autumn breeze, advertising that there’s always a vacancy inside ($30, above left). Drape orange icicle lights from Amazon in the upstairs windows for an otherworldly glow ($6), and nestle an electric spider web (above, right) in one of your trees, preferably in a branch that bows down close to people’s heads.

Wrap a lighted string of pirate heads, skulls and tombstones (both above) or creepy crawlies from Halloween Effects around the front porch posts and you’ll make some of those trick or treaters think twice about charging up to your door ($10-$13).

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Target’s got a winning fashion trifecta lined up for the month.

Fashionistas looking for a budget-friendly fashion fix can score with designer Anya Hindmarch’s new handbag collection, Sigerson Morrison’s footwear collection and the new Jonathan Saunders clothing collection, all launching in mid-October. 

Saunders’ line hit Target’s shelves this past weekend. The Scottish-born designer offers a fresh take on color blocking, knitwear and clean-line silhouettes. Among our trendy favorites: the colorblock dress in white/ebony ($30, above right) and the ombre print skirt in blue whale ($27, above left).

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