Halloween Party

Halloween is one of my absolute favorite holidays. Usually, though, I have to work, or we have something going on. This year, though, was a bit different. The hubs and I had a morning commitment, but then the rest of the day was free! Woohoo! A major Halloween Party was in the works.

We started with some invitations…I found these at Michael’s for $1 per 8 invitations. I loved them, even though the red and black are not the most traditional Halloween colors. My first thought was that I would find a cool vampire picture to put on the front, playing off the idea of blood with the red. No such luck, but I did find some awesome witch, pumpkin, and cat stickers at Hallmark. I created the inside on through Word, printed them out, plopped some stickers on there, and voila! a lovely invitation.

Next was food. The hubs and I both like to cook…and eat. I wanted our food for the evening, though, to be fun and festive as well as being yummy. Here’s our menu for the evening:

Bat Wings aka Chicken Wings

Monster Toes aka Pigs in a Blanket

Mini Caramel Apples
Eyeballs- Mozzarella Balls with olives

Ghost and Witch Hat Sugar Cookies

Haystacks

Deviled Ham Dip

Buffalo Chicken Dip

Spiderweb and Tombstone Cupcakes

Pumpkin Bread

Chips

Chex Party Mix

Drinks Included
Hot Apple Cider (with rum right next to it for spiking purposes)
Assorted Beer (including pumpkin)

Assorted Wine (with fun, alternative labels)

Assorted Sodas

In addition to all this, I had intended for all guests to leave with a mini favor bag with some Halloween pretzels and assorted traditional candies, but we had had substantially more trick or treaters this year

Finally, we moved on to décor. My outside decorations can be seen here. Inside, my primary focus was the table. I found this lovely spider web fabric at JoAnn’s, which I placed on top of a white table cloth for our food table. I used some plastic spiders and mice to dress things up a bit. My center piece included two tape candles I found on clearance at Yankee Candle that appear to drip blood. They looked cool at first but then they just got goopy. I also picked up some red roses at Trader Joe's which I intended to spray paint black for an eerie, dead effect, but they looked pretty cool staying red.

We added a lot more spider webs and a cloaked figure to our front porch. We used a cheap strobe light and had a CD playing of creepy sounds. I got a lot of compliments from trick or treaters on how "cool" our yard looked...although a few little ones I greeted at the end of the driveway. They were too afraid to come up!

Overall, it was a great night and we cannot wait to do it

next year!

Outdoor Halloween Decorations

For the past few years, I've wanted to add in tombstones outside. Store bought ones just weren't good enough for me-the hubs and I wanted to put our own inscriptions on them. Unfortunately, I do not have a saw, but my wonderful father was kind enough to cut these out of plywood for me and add in some stakes so they would go into the ground a bit easier. I tried spray painting them first, which did not work, but acted as a nice base or primer coat. Then I found the perfect grey exterior paint in the “oops bin” at Home Depot. One quart was a plenty for what I needed, and I was thrilled to only pay $1. So each tombstone received a couple coats, followed by a light coating of Valspar’s Stone Effect spray paint. It gave a nice general effect of stone. Finally, I painted on the names, dates, and quotes from our subjects: Romeo & Juliet, Darth Vader, The Wicked Witch of the West, Mufasa, and Kenny. A random selection, but they worked for us. I also added in two ghosts I found at JoAnn’s. Originally, I was going to make them, but these were cheaper than I could have made them for.







I found these cornstalks at our local farmer’s market, which have been up since the end of September with my scarecrow and pumpkins. I cannot wait to carve the pumpkins for Halloween!

I found these tins at Target in the “Dollar Spot.” They were actually $2.50 each, but they were a heck of a lot cheaper than similar $10 ones I had seen around. The pumpkin lights are also from Target’s “Dollar Spot,” although also $2.50. (Apparently, I have expensive tastes even when it’s coming from the cheap section of the store!)

For Halloween evening, we will add in a strobe light behind the Romeo & Juliet tombstone, a CD with creepy sounds playing from on the front porch, and, of course, carved pumpkins.I'm also hoping that I can finagle a dark, cloaked figure on the bench on our front porch to intimidate trick-or-treaters and party goers.