Share your Halloween preparation tips with Cadbury - £300 voucher to be won NOW CLOSED

[JustineBMumsnet]

Preparing for any celebration (Halloween no exception!) can be easier when you have the knowledge of others to help you out. With this in mind, Cadbury would like to hear about the ways you prepare for Halloween - whether you have creative costume ideas, crafty Halloween decorating skills - really any way you get trick-or-treat ready come the 31st October.

Do you have any great costume ideas? Maybe you have tips for creating a fabulous spooky look indoors or for when trick or treaters come up to your door? What are your ways of ensuring everyone has fun when going out trick or treating on Halloween? Whatever your tips and tricks for preparing for Halloween, please share them below to be entered into a prize draw where one lucky MNer will win a £300 Love2Shop voucher.

Thread closing 20th October.

Thanks and good luck!

MNHQ

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we love to create out own costumes, big planning goes into it and its loads of fun together

Costumes bought and cupboards filled with chocolate with special ghoulish Treats for the neighbours kids

a bed sheet with eyes cut out, lace net curtains makes a great ghost

Get constumes for the family and make some cakes for it .

Mexican day of the dead face painting with black leggings and t-shirt is so cheap to do but really effective, and kids love face paints !

Buy lots of chocolate, pretend it's for the trick and treaters, hide it in a "safe place" until Halloween, give out very little and then you've loads left over to see you through November. Sorted.

We live in quite a spooky house as the front garden is all trees and at this time of year there are spider webs all over the trees and going across the steps. Every year I think about making more of it for the trick or treaters but my kids always want to go out trick or treating themselves so we are never at home. One year!

I always buy decorations after halloween when shops and supermarkets reduce the products by a huge amount. I then store them away until the next Halloween. It saves a fortune.

We don't bother with dressing up or trick or treating but we enjoy making Halloween themed food eg witches finger biscuits or cakes iced with spider webs. There's a local farm doing PYO pumpkins this year which sounds fun - we can carve it and then make soup or maybe even pumpkin pie!

Pumpkin carving always get the parent to cut out the pumpkin pieces

We have our own apple trees, so there's no shortage for the bobbing.
We do have to look out for lodgers to avoid appalling the kids who are unused to organic!

we make a game with jelly and the kids have to "fish" sweets out of it

we paint our pumpkins, its a lot less messy!

We just carve pumpkins. Much prefer the scottish guising where kids have to tell a joke or something, instead of just demanding trick or treat

Glow in the dark is so useful - you get sprays, stickers, sticks and strips, the more the merrier . We then use a smoke machine for extra effect.

I have to say we will be sticking to the traditional and make believe characters of halloween as I don't agree with all the scary versions of normal adults i.e scary cheerleader, scary bride or scary nurses as I think bringing scariness to normal characters can confuse and maybe prompt miss trust of these professions

I think the most inspired costume / cop out was at a party last year. The shop had run out of costumes apparently and they had no supplies to make a suitable horror costume. So a friend wore jeans and a white t-shirt and on the t-shirt front wrote "Error 404 Costume not found"

I thought it was genius!!

We have the house in darkness with spooky music playing and we all dress up too. We have a little party while scarying the trick or treaters when they come to the door for sweets.

We don't tend to spend a fortune on outfits. I either get them in the sale the previous year (I do this with decorations too!) or we make our own .. really you only need basic tees and leggings and a bit of imagination ahem Pinterest!! (it helps that we have a huge craft box!) and then we just paintour faces.... really good fun!

Plus apple bobbing, pin the claws on the werewolf, and making our own spooky drinks and snacks... it's a lot of fun!

Sorry but we are not huge fans of Halloween - We do not believe in trick or treat expeditions but we will have in house fun, games and laughter instead of knocking on doors...

Our village has really embraced Halloween over the last few years & I love it! We had a Halloween party last year which was great! Fancy dress for kids & adults, all the decor & partyware purchased at the Poundland - but you wouldn't know it!
We decorated the house outside last year for the first time ever (to let everyone know we were good for Trick or Treating!) & it was so fun! Just cheap decs - but it all looks great in the dark! A couple of paper lanterns in the tree - some fake web & a giant spider over the door..
I picked up a few bits in the sale after Halloween last year & car boot sales, jumbles & charity shops are great for picking up stuff cheaply out of season!
You don't have to spend loads to have a good time.

Why bother with dept store costumes. The best fun is making your own costumes with your kids and you end up with something unique and original instead of looking like an Asda Halloween ad.

We don't really celebrate halloween, although I do buy a few sweets for anyone who knocks the door.

We use glow sticks and use toilet rolls to make scary face cut outs

our costumes last year

Keep the kids out of the kitchen!