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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[CopperPan]

We buy our Halloween costumes in the sales in November ready for the next year! It's also a great time to stock up on fake blood, decorations etc. We also raid my mum's fabric offcuts for inspiration - lots of black or white netty fabric is always useful.

[safariboot]

We buy some sweets and chocolate just in case any trick-or-treaters come round. Then Halloween night we turn all the lights off and pretend to be out, that way no trick-or-treaters knock and we get to eat all the sweets ourselves

[blackistheneworange]

Another one who buys costumes on the 1st November- also like to hand them down now the kids are older.

[Mummy2aRockstar]

My son loves to decorate pumpkins but as he's only 5 it's obviously a no no to him carving, so we paint the pumpkins or stick lots of goggly eyes on them. Here's last years pumpkins.

[custardcream1000]

We enjoy doing lots of Halloween inspired craft activities and baking. Last week we started making an autumn/Halloween wreath and we will keep adding extra leaves and spooky things to it in the run up to Halloween.

[confused123456]

We don't do Halloween at all. I hate trick of treating, and I'd never ever let my child do it.
We have some sweets in case people knock, but I always hope they don't.

[laura6032]

Buy all your Halloween decorations and costumes the day after Halloween, you'll get them really cheap and put them away horses next year. Obs not perishables lol xx

[Wargghhhh]

I have watched a lot of YouTube tutorials and am now a pretty good scary face painter! Some of the tutorials are excellent and go through it step by step and the results can be pretty impressive!

You don't need to spend loads on a costume at all - a scary face and some black clothes will do the trick nicely!

[SuzCG]

I don't like the whole trick or treat thing - happy to give stuff if kids come to our door but don't want my kids going out doing it. We tend just to have a little halloween party at home with friends - a bit of 'spooky' food, trim up the house and table and play party games. Wrapping them up as mummies in toilet roll is always the greatest fun! I give them all a party bag full of goodies and glow sticks etc - so they haven't missed out by not going knocking on doors.

[StickChildNumberTwo]

My only preparation is getting sweets in for guisers, but where we now live we don't get many so even that's not really necessary, there's always Haribo in the house if any suddenly turned up.

My husband sometimes carves a swede, never a pumpkin.

[SaigonSaigon]

We make some fun Halloween food for a small party before trick or treating on a local estate that positively encourages you to go! I make spider cupcakes (liquorice legs), bloodied finger hot dogs and worms in jelly (jelly worms set in lime jelly and topped with crushed choc biscuits for soil)

[hellymart]

We always do some 'apple bobbing' but we make it more Hallowee'nish by adding milk and food dye to the bowl in green (frogspawn!) or red (blood!), edible glitter and fake spiders! Great fun.

[HopefulHamster]

Mine's boring. Buy the sweets early when on offer and DON'T EAT THEM.

[flamingtoaster]

I buy multipacks of funsized treats when on offer for trick or treaters. When the children were smaller they enjoyed dressing up to hand out the treats. We always had dunking for apples, carving lanterns, telling spooky stories.

[humtum167]

Plan out everything with the kids !!

Don't need things to get uglier than they have to !!
Kids love doing each others make up, so I just let them get on with it.

[Belmo]

I got decorations in the sales last year - feeling a bit smug!

[VilootShesCute]

We lock the front gate so we don't get hoardes of begging kids knocking at our door for hours. Preparation enough methinks

[debjani]

We carve a pumpkin together every Halloween but also get out this lantern we made years ago out of coloured tissue paper and an old baby food glass jar - my early teen children still love to see it!

[georgedawes]

We like to have a party rather than go trick or treating, and the key to that going well is lots and lots of sweets! Nothing else really matters to the kids...

[janeyf1]

Halloween is the easiest theme for dress-ups. I have lots of gothic style make-up and we make witches hats and carry broomsticks (which also make us feel safe)

[mooota1514]

Without meaning to sound a 'party pooper' my kids don't enjoy halloween so we celebrate in other ways instead. We still enjoy fun food and fun with friends and games but avoid anything they find scary. so my tip would be not to feel pressured just because it's what others do and do your own thing instead with family and friends that's your own kind of fun.

[Diamondsandpears]

Warm Halloween costumes to avoid wearing coats and hiding them. Carved pumpkins with a battery operated torch inside. Fruit and "treats" with ingredients for anyone that needs to check them.

[andywedge]

Whatever you do or dress the kids up as the main ingredient of looking good is face paint

[meepmoop79]

We do things at home for Halloween, dress up, carve pumpkins, decorate a bit, have spooky cakes and snacks, and then watch a 'scary' film.
We do not go out trick or treating, or answer the door.

[shellywkd]

My daughter went as Maleficent last year. We made her headpiece out of an old head band, pipe cleaners, paper mache and black electrical take. It looked amazing.