HELP NEEDED! DS2 has just decided he wants a halloween fancy dress birthday party!

[tortoisesdonotwearshoes]

His 7th Birthday is on the 10th Oct His party would have to be the folowing saturday because our town has its childrens carnival on the 7th!
I need some good ideas for food/games/decorations etc.

And does anyone think its a bad idea??

Also costumes for 2 boys 9 and(will be)7 and 2 girls 2 and 3 and something for me!!
Cheap as possible please!
TIA!

I remember that Tescos had loads of Halloween stuff last year -fancy dress, decorations, even special food like Halloween cakes. They also had very cheap bits and pieces for party bags like yoyos, glow-in-the-dark teeth.

Or try pound shops etc -they'll have loads of cheap stuff

Food-Witches noses (cocktail sausages)
Popcorn-broken brains
Jelly worms etc
Plenty of supermarkets sell themed food at halloween.

The pound shop has loads of halloween stuff in at the moment ,im sure you could scrape some outfits together from there.

ASDA/Tesco/Woolies all have their Halloween costumes and decorations out now, and they all seem pretty reasonable. ASDA definitely had costumes going from toddlers to adults (capes and wigs mainly for the adults) and had loads of decorations.

Decoration idea - orange balloons with triangles of black paper stuck to them to make eyes and mouths.

Some great ideas so far.Keep them coming!

Ruby I have the recipe somewhere!!!!

Mothercare are selling Halloween CDs, with scary/childrens music. Would be good for Spooky musical bumps?

All the ideas sound grerat, I want to throw a kids Halloween party as well now!

Have been to one where they played loo roll mummy - name says it all really and its great fun!!!

SewingMadMummy I like the sound of doing that!!

Its brilliant. Just seperate them into the "doers" and the "having it done to" and dont tell them why. Only that they can't back out. Hide loo rolls in a black sack and get the "doers" to pick them out. Have a time limit e.g. one party song. Award prizes for best coverage, silliest etc guaranteed hit!!! Have fun

My DS is having the same party on the 14th!

You can get invites, decorations etc at Asda. They have constumes as well for all ages.

We are doing apple bobbing, I found a pumpkin pinata online and a pin the ghost on the haunted house (type thing) as well as pass the parcel.

Do the game where you put your hand through a hole in a sheet and have to feel things - cooked spaghetti 'worms', jelly 'brains', dead-mens fingers 'sausages' etc.

We did this last year for 4yo and based it on Room on the Broom - copied the picture (oops) and did a Pin the Witch on the Broom game, we also made 10 broomsticks using long wrapping paper tubes with strips of cardboard taped round the end. We then had broom-racing around the garden. Bit babyish (and a bit bonkers) for your boys but the girls might like!

Read scary stories by candlelight after tea. But not too scary or the parents will hate you for the broken nights they get as a result...!

Early Learning Centre has a free magazine this month with some ideas for Halloween food - they had glasses of cranberry juice with green ice cubes and a jelly snake hanging out the top which looked pretty cool!

Have a look at funfayre.net for brilliant party food in your area!
Jan

As mention a number of times before asda is so good for spooky stuff!

Also you can get little spiders, snakes, rats etc and tiny pumpkin cauldrons and you could hide all the stuff and they have to find it.

As for your costume you may not have to spend a penny - cast an eye over what you have with a thought to the rocky horror picture show and you may have to buy some tights and away you go (careful though as has a tendency to verge on the kinky.)

games: murder in the dark, wink murder, flour cake with sweetie on top, apple bobbing, iced bun on a string (eat no hands), oh loads of stuff - I think you are lucky he has chosen you an easy one, esp this time of year.

Good luck!

There is a recipe for Spooks Punch in one of my dd's books. It's basically a blood red punch (they use mainly cranberry juice) with ice hands floating in it. They're made by freezing water or lemonade in surgical gloves tied at the end. They look really effective but I don't know how easy they are to do.

I found some really lovely halloween costumes on www.buttonbag.com - you have to make them yourself and I'm not the greatest at sewing - but I still managed to do the wizard - great cloak!

Has anyone looked at that party ideas site? Thsoe American women are mad - they could run a multinational or write a novel in the time they spend preparing a Halloween party...

add few drops of blue food colouring to orange squash to get green witches brew

add some jelly worms to half set jelly then return to fridge to set completely.

make cornflake cakes and put some halloween sweets on top.

We did one of these 2 years ago and it was great fun!

Did the jelly worms in jelly and had a bug infested jelly eating competition - I think they thought it was a bit too real tho because lots of throwing up involved!

I searched for halloween jokes on internet. Then I cut out loads of ghost shapes, 2 per A4 sheet of printer paper and wrote the question on one side and the answer on the other. Then I hung them on string at different heights from the ceiling (use blu tack not cellotape like i did, still got about 50 bare patches on the front room ceiling )

I filled both rooms with them and looked amazing!

Kept lights low and lots of candles in high places.

Trawled the pound shops and asda was good too. You can buy plastic covers that hang around doorframes to look like the entrance to a haunted mansion. They looked a bit crap in daylight, but by the evening with a skeleton hanging there too and some pumpkins they really transformed our front door. And only a £1!!

We got a pumpkin pinata (sp?) which they used a witch's broomstick to hit it with, they loved it!

Usual party food for the kids with a few halloween bits thrown in.

Pumpkin soup and lovely rolls for the grown ups

All the grown ups got dressed up too and it was so much fun. (I wanted to dress up as wonder woman but ds1 was having none of it!) Bought cheapy costume, pink witches dress with cobweb pattern all over, cut the bottom so it was really ragged and wore with tights, knee length black boots and floor length black velvet coat borrowed off my mum. DP wore his black suit, with a cheap set of dark red rubber wings and a half face mask. He looked very menacing!

Hope you have a great party!

I'm off to wake DP and tell him I think we should dig out all the stuff and have another one!

I agree with all these and green food colouring is great added to vanilla milk shake and to mashed potatoes - should you want to do a hot meal as opposed to a buffett!

And from what I saw in Tesco yesterday they have loads and lods of Halloween stuff!