If you want to throw an awesome Halloween party this year but you're not quite sure where to start here is a step-by-step guide to making your party the one people will be talking about for ages.
Step One The Ambience - you can't have a haunted house without a haunted house atmosphere, it just won't work. Think about the lighting in the room, the obvious choice is to switch off all of the electric lights and use flickering candles around the room. It's true, they do create a wonderfully eerie atmosphere as they cast their shadows around the room but you'll have to keep an eye on them all night, replace them if they burn out and pray that none of your guests knock them over!! A more simple option is to buy battery powered tealights. You can, believe it or not, buy candle shaped battery powered lights and even the bulb at the end flickers like a candle.
Cardboard Halloween Decorations
My preferred option is to change the lightbulbs, It's easy to do, safe for the guests - especially the kids and you can use lots of different colors. Choose green, red and purple bulbs and place the bulbs in your lamps around the house you'll be amazed at the results.
Step TwoThe Decorations - You don't have to spend loads of money on plastic dummies and special effects. If you've got your lighting right then you're half way there. Try throwing white dust sheets over your furniture. It's a simple idea but what easier way to suggest that the house has been abandoned. The sheets will also protect your furniture a little as well!
You can also make decorations, cut pumpkin shapes or other ghostly figures out of black sugar paper and back the sugar paper with orange tissue paper. TIP Fold the sugar paper in half before you cut out your pumpkin shape so when you open up the paper after the face will be symmetrical. Then stick the whole thing on the window with the black sugar paper touching the window and the orange tissue paper behind it. The black will block out the light from the room but the tissue paper will let the light through. People walking past the house will see glowing ghostly figures as they walk past your house.
You can also make different sized spiders out of two styrofoam balls, a cocktail stick, black paint, black pipe cleaners and goggly eyes. First paint the styrofoam balls black and leave to dry. Then connect the two balls using the cocktail stick. One ball represents the head and the other the abdomen so make sure the abdomen ball is slightly bigger than the head ball. A tiny bit of glue will keep the stick in place. Push in the pipe cleaners, four on each side of the abdomen and shape them to make them look like legs. Then stick on the goggly eyes and you've made a creepy spider. Hang them from the ceiling or place them around the room. If you hang them then make a hole in the abdomen with a pencil, blob some glue in it and put the string in. The spider will hang then just as if it's letting out its web.
You can also make you're own body to stick out from behind the sofa! after all, what Halloween party is complete without a dead body!! See the link below for more information.
Step ThreeThe Food - Finger food is always best for a Halloween party, no body want a sit down meal at a party like this (unless of course you are doing a murder mystery party). The trick is to make the food look like anything to do with ghosts, pumpkins, body parts etc! for example. Make little gravestones out of cardboard and place them behind chocolate brownies and they instantly look like gravestones! If you want to go a bit further instead of putting RIP on the headstones you can put your guests names!! Try to make carrot sticks, celery sticks and peppers etc look like fingers, the dips aren't salsa, guacamole and soured cream they are Frankenstein guts, witches bogies and ghost vomit. The kids love it. Add jelly sweets in the shape of worms into the bottom of jelly bowls and call them witches brew. You get the general idea - you can make any food look like something spooky with a bit of imagination.
If you want a centerpiece for the table and you are not very artistic then just place different sized pumpkins in the middle, throw over some fake cobwebs and add a few tiny plastic spiders - job done! its effective and simple to do. Place items in sets of three as add numbers always look more effective than even groups. For a kids centerpiece hollow out a pumpkin (make soup with the flesh) and fill with sweets. If you do make soup, serve the soup in a very carefully hollowed out pumpkin for a more effective look.
So, you've got the best dressed house in the street, the creepiest food and the best centerpiece, what more could you guests possible ask for???
Step FourThe Games - Any of the usual party games with a Halloween twist will be a hit with the kids (and most adults!) for example, Pin the nose on the witch, Frankensteins footsteps etc. You could try making gloop and hide small gift in it to see if the kids can find them. Gloop is runny in the bowl but goes hard when you squeeze it - its amazing stuff and really easy to make. Pass the balloon using only your chin while the balloon is filled with gloop is a good one to try as well. Don't worry the gloop just brushes off when dry or washes out. That is unless you put food coloring in to make it red or green etc so be careful. Don't forget the Halloween treasure hunt. Get the guests to put their hands into boxes fill with yucky stuff to find the clues!
After all of your hard work don't let your guests let you down, make sure they dress up! Let them know your theme on your invite such as massacre at number (?? - your house number) or witches and wizards, Dracula and dame, the possibilities are endless.