55 Ideas for Halloween Parties

1. Ask the guests to arrive in costume. So that they don't spend too much, you can specify that they should be homemade costumes. In our magazine, we offer ideas for simple, yet original, homemade costumes .

2. Not everyone likes to dress up, but if you still want to throw an original party and have the guests prepare a little bit, you can ask them to come disguised above the shoulders by painting their faces and wearing some sort of hat or other accessories.

3. A fun activity for a costume party (you will need a video camera) is to record an interview with each guest when they arrive at the party, as if they were at the Oscars. Later, gather all the guests in front of the television to see the results.

4. Make a " guest book " with pages (some cut, others simply ripped) made of waxed paper. The guests have to write their comments with a pen in red ink.

5. For simple, yet fun, invitations, cut out silhouttes of bats from thin, black cardboard, and write the information with a silver pen or silver paint.

6. Write the party information (place, date, time, etc.) on the border of a square (approx. 20cm x 20cm) made of white silk paper or white fabric (for example, an old sheet). Cover a lollipop (Chupa Chups® style) with the square (if you use delicate silk paper, it is recommended that you use two sheets), tie the "neck" and draw some eyes on the ghost. Deliver a ghost/invitation to every guest (remind them not to lose the information!).

7. Paint or write the party details (place, date, time, etc.) on one or several pumpkins. Take a picture of the pumpkins and make several copies - these will be the invitations. Send them in orange envelopes for added effect.

8. As a surprise, include a little bit of Halloween confetti inside the envelope with the invitation.

9. Hang some dead branches from the roof or place them directly on the roof. Inflate some white balloons , and cover each one with a piece of white plastic (for example, a piece of a white trash bag) or white fabric (for example, an old sheet). Tie the "neck" with a ribbon or string just below the balloon, and crush the "skirt" a little bit, so that it hangs in strips. With a black felt-tip pen, draw the eyes and also a mouth if you'd like, and hang the "ghosts" from the branches with a white, or invisible, thread. Also, you can hang these "ghosts" outside in the garden to greet the guests.

10. Decorate white, helium balloons in the same way, covering them with white plastic or a light, white fabric, and place them in bunches in the living room or in the garden. It is a simple, yet striking effect - and fun too!

11. Cut out some eyes and, if you want, some mouths on white sheets, and use them to cover the heads of some brooms or large brushes . Lay them in corners or insert them in flowerpots.

12. Hang long pieces of decorative black ribbon from the doorframe at the entrance and keep the lights off, so that the ribbons graze the guests' faces and give them a scare!

13. Keep the lights low. If you can find a black lightbulb (they are sold in many electrical shops), use it to replace the bulbs of a ceiling light. It gives off a "ghostly" light. Or, replace your regular lights with some red lightbulbs. Another idea is to turn off the lights and light some candles (our pumpkin candles or luminous eyes would work very well).

14. If your living room has spotlights, you can play with the lighting by placing colored photographic cellophane in front of the lights (it can be bought in photography stores). This creates an ambiance for the entire room, or can illuminate different areas with various colors.

15. If you find a large pumpkin , why not follow the North American custom of turning it into a participant at the party? Cut out the top part with a large knife (save it, since it becomes the lid of the pumpkin later), and remove the innards. Then, draw the eyes and the mouth on the "face", and cut out the shapes with a small knife. When it is ready for the party, put a short candle inside and light it. Cover the pumpkin with the top. The light will illuminate the eyes and the mouth, giving it a sinister appearance! A trick is to make a few cuts on the lower part of the lid, and sprinkle cinnamon and nutmeg inside. Replace the lid, and with the light of the candle, it will give off a very pleasant and autumn-like smell.

16. Why limit yourself to pumpkins? Remove the top of a green or red pepper (the base - depending on where it leans best) and cut out scary or funny faces. Place a short candle in the base and light it before the guests arrive. Decorate the entrance of the party with a few of these.

17. If you can find dry ice , this creates a spectacular environment at a party. An interesting effect is to put the dry ice inside an empty pumpkin. Keep the dry ice out of the reach of children, and be careful not to touch it with your hands!

18. Create a horrifying centerpiece for your table by placing withered flowers and dead branches in a flowerpot. Embellish the pot with a black bow.

19. Cut out the silhoutte of a ghost or a bat from thin, black cardboard. Place the cardboard in front of a lit lamp, on some furniture in a corner of the living room. This will illuminate the figure of the ghost or bat on the opposite wall, as well as being a nice decoration by itself.

20. Place huge silhouttes of spiders in the corners.

21. Decorate the walls, the table and the entrance of the party with leaves and dead branches.

22. Embellish the table with an amputated hand . Fill a latex glove with cotton, glue on paper fingernails, and paint it with "blood" (red paint).

23. Cover assorted pumpkins of several shapes with white paint (this is easier with spray paint). When the paint is dry, paint the eyes and the mouths. Put them in the middle of the table with some leaves and branches, and you will have a spectacularly decorated table.

24. Cut out silhouttes of bats from thin, black cardboard, and hang them in the living room with invisible or black thread (which can be bought in a haberdasher's shop).

25. Hang plastic spiders from the ceiling at different heights with transparent threads. This effect works wonderfully if you turn out the lights and light up the party with candles.

26. Fill an adult's coat or jacket and pants with pillows and rolled-up newspapers, and place the "body" in a chair next to the main door. You can use a pumpkin or a white balloon for the head, or just leave the body without a head!

27. Decorate the windows with silhouttes of bats (better viewed from outside) or ghosts (better seen from inside).

28. Create your own soundtrack for the party. Record whatever creepy sounds that you wish on cassette or CD: screams, howls, the sound of dry leaves crunching under feet, the falling of metal pans, ghostly outbursts of laughter, etc. This is a fun activity and your friends will love the effect! Rice falling on top of aluminium foil can be rain, a plastic bag can be a bat, crinkling cellophane can be a fire, etc.

29. You can't do without spiderwebs - the more the scarier! Put them in the doorframes, the corners, between furniture, as part of the table centerpiece, in the windows, etc.

30. Cover the walls with an abstract design or a spiderweb made of crazy, fluorescent string . You can also write a welcome (or a scary) message.

31. Don't forget to leave something frightening in the bathroom . Plastic spiders floating in the toilet, a fluorescent skull behind the door, spiderwebs on the faucet, etc.

32. Throw some dry crackers or potato chips underneath a rug. When the guests walk on top of it, it will sound like breaking bones !

33. " Trick or treat " is the Halloween motto for children in the United States . You can turn it into a fun game at the party, for kids as well as adults. For each guest, write a prank (sing a song, hop "on a gimpy leg", act like a ghost, etc.) on a piece of paper. Put it together with a small gift in a paper bag (like our trick or treat bags). Taking turns, the guests take a bag and have to complete the prank before they can receive their gift.

34. Make a spider-web cake , covering a sponge cake with white frosting. Melt dark chocolate in a bain-marie and, using a teaspoon, let it fall in a spiral on top of the white frosting. With a toothpick, beginning in the center, draw a line out to the edge and repeat, like the spokes of a wheel. You can use the same technique to create spider-web cupcakes .

35. Earthworm cake: Make a chocolate cake and cover it with chocolate frosting. Use Oreo® cookie crumbs or chocolate vermicelli as a decoration, and gummy worms (some inside, and others as if they were crawling out from the middle of the cake), or you can also use spider-shaped gummy candy.

36. "Eye" cupcakes: Frost the cupcakes with white frosting, saving a little bit of space in the middle. Frost the middle with red dye, and "draw" the red veins with a toothpick or a fine paintbrush, beginning in the center. Place half of a sour cherry or a maraschino cherry in the center, and put a drop of chocolate in the center of the cherry.

37. Bloody cupcakes: Decorate the cupcakes with white frosting and a little bit of red frosting to simulate blood.

38. Serve red drinks , like fruit juice or Campari®.

39. Freeze plastic flies or gummy worms inside ice cubes to serve in beverages.

40. Serve sangría or red punch from a hollow pumpkin . It will be striking with the steam from the dry ice coming from all around it.

41. Cover the trays (before putting the food on them) with big pieces of cotton gauze for a spider-web effect.

42. Use small, hollowed-out pumpkins to serve carrot sticks, olives, guacamole, etc.

43. Decorate a Halloween pumpkin with jelly beans . Insert different jelly beans for the eyes, nose, teeth, etc., using toothpicks. You can give the pumpkin a funny hair-do with the green part of the carrots, or celery leaves. A few raisins could serve as freckles.

44. Serve witches soup , which in reality is apple juice with or without rum, spiced up with a cinnamon stick and some cloves (remove the cloves before serving!!!). It is amusing if you serve it in a hollow pumpkin.

45. Serve a tray of food made in Halloween colors , orange and black (for example, carrot sticks and black olives).

46. Decorate the food trays with plastic spiders .

47. Chocolate spiders: Melt chocolate in a bain-marie. Put it in a pastry sleeve (or a plastic bag, with a slice in one corner, but be careful not to burn yourself), and make spider shapes with the chocolate on top of a tray lined with aluminium foil. Put it in the fridge for an hour, or until they harden. If you want, add eyes with melted white-chocolate.

48. Fingers of the dead: With a rolling pin, flatten a slice of white bread (without crust). Smother it with Philadelphia® cream cheese and roll it up. Pinch one end and stick an almond or half of a pitted olive to it with the cream cheese, and "dip" the other end in ketchup. You can also make these fingers with peanut butter and raspberry or strawberry jelly.

49. Icy hand: Fill a plastic glove with water (don't use a latex glove, since they usually contain talc), close it with a rubber band, and put it on a tray in the freezer. When it is frozen, take it out, remove the glove, and place the frozen hand in a bowl of red juice.

50. Take a picture of every guest when they arrive (if possible, in front of a backdrop made especially for the occasion), and send it to them after the party as a souvenier.

51. If it is not a costume party, hire someone to paint the childrens' faces with colored makeup. They will become monsters, witches, etc.

52. Decorate with lots of black and orange balloons .

53. Hang orange and black streamers in the living room and the entrance. For a bicolor effect, put a black streamer together with an orange one, stick one end to one wall, and twist the two streamers together to create a "helix" effect.

54. Use disposable plastic gloves (not latex gloves) as party bags. You can fill them with small gifts, candy, etc. It would be amusing to put a different colored jellybean in each finger, representing the fingernail.

55. Ask an older brother or a child of a friend to participate, hiding underneath the dessert table, for example, and when the children get close, pinch their legs. Or, all of a sudden appear in the window with a sinister look.

By Fiesta Facil

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