Halloween is one of those nights which give us a great excuse to act like children and have a bit of fun whilst looking ridiculous! Looking through the internet there are so many themes and types of Halloween parties to choose from and I’ve spent a little longer than i should have deciding on what ideas to go for. You can have a Halloween party filled with Halloween treats for the kids and family or make it an adult-only affair by mixing Halloween cocktails such as Bloody Mary but either way make it a Halloween to remember with great decorations, hilarious costumes, and Halloween themed treats and food.

I came across this fantastic guide at the website Celebrations which shows you how to throw a Halloween party on a budget - ‘Scare your guests not your Wallet’ they call it and there’s another called “Kid’s Halloween Party on a Budget”! It has become my point of reference over the past week when planning my little Spooktastic party for this weekend and here are a few of the ideas I’ve decided on.

 

Decorations

• Use the colours orange, white and black to decorate the room that you’re guests will be in (in my case the dining room and living room)
• Make your home party friendly and child proof by moving anything breakable to another room
• Buy lots of black, white and orange balloons and put them all over the room (also use a black marker and draw scary faces on the white and orange ones!)
  - Buy your smaller décor items, like Halloween plates, napkins, and sweets closer to the day of the event. They always go on sale and I’ve seen a load in Asda and Sainsburys.
• Make orange coloured jelly
• Buy stretchy string spider webs to decorate the walls and furniture
• Dim the lights if you have a dimmer switch or just switch on lamps with red scarfs hung over them
• Place plastic spiders around the room to surprise people
• Remember, if you’ve not got enough decorations, dont worry, the guests’ costumes will make up most of the decor!
• Put candle lit pumpkins either side of your gateway so that your guests know where they’re going for the party. Not yet carved your pumpkin yet? Heres a video to show you how to do it!

Fancy Dress

Heres a link to a great page with loads of ‘Make your own’ Halloween costume ideas. I’ve been really lazy and bought mine off www.joke.co.uk. A perfect one for all the Mr Hectic Mums out there is this Jack Skellington costume (he he!). But by far the best I’ve found which is for little kids (however I’m sure I’ve seen adults squeeze into them in the past!) is this pumpkin outfit from ASDA. 

And for babies theres this fantastic outfit i found on Martha Stewart (couldn’t stop laughing when I first saw this!)…

 

Food ideas

My food ideas are always focused around sweet treats and I’ve found a ‘Bloody Brain Pannacotta‘, ‘Brain Cupcakes‘ and some ‘Spider Cupcakes‘ from Bakerella which i will definately be whipping up. Other than that I’ll be making pumpkin soup (using the hollowed out pumpkin bits), Frankenstein fingers with guacamole dip, sausage and bacon broomsticks and a big ‘cauldron’ of chicken chilli.

If you live in a area where you get inundated with Trick or Treat gangs of children my best advice is to buy a couple of massive bags of sweets from somewhere like Asda which will be under £5 to buy and are quick and easy to distribute.

 

Halloween Movies
If you’re thinking a night in sounds more appealing then why don’t you rent out a DVD such as Sleepy Hollow, Hannibal, Beetle Juice, Edward Scissorhands (I still get nightmares from that!), Roald Dahl’s The Witches or Bram Stoker’s Dracula and scare yourself senseless!

Anyway, that’s it from me! I hope you have a Spooktastic time celebrating! Let me know if you’re doing anything particularly thrilling!