Halloween Party Ideas

Halloween is one of the celebrations and the time of the year that has become increasingly popular and favored by many – children and adults alike. It is a fun time to dress-up, visit haunted houses, do some Halloween decorating, go trick-or-treating, perhaps play some Halloween pranks/spooks and enjoy the celebrations of Fall.

Halloween Party Supplies

Halloween Party Room with Halloween cupcakes, grand piano with bottle of Halloween wine, crystal goblet, skeleton hand, Halloween place setting, skull favor, skull napkin, custom napkins

Halloween Party Plan

Before we start planning for a Halloween party, we must decide on a theme. Halloween Parties can be themed to fit a favorite movie, character, or story – like Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter, Indiana Jones, Silence of the Lambs, etc. …. or it can simply be just a general Halloween Theme. Having a theme makes it easier to decorate and plan. Below is a description of a general Halloween party theme.

Other Halloween Theme Party Ideas

HALLOWEEN SUPER STORE

Halloween Party Invitations

Halloween Invitations can be purchased ready-made or they can be hand-made. If you don’t have time or want to make your own Halloween invitations, you can buy them easily online or in retail stores. Some DIY invitation ideas:

HALLOWEEN INVITATIONS

shop Halloween Party Invitation Supplies button

Halloween Party Decorations

The Flash Player and a browser with Javascript support are needed..

If you are planning a Halloween Haunted House, don’t fret! The good thing is, when all the lights are dim, things look much spookier and scarier, so less props are required to have a little bit of fun. Here are some fun, easy and inexpensive ways to achieve the Spook Factor for your Haunted House!

Dead Body Parts. Place “Grow a Hand” and “Grow a Brain” toys in a big jar of water. Let it grow. Put a few drops of red food coloring in to make it look like blood. Shine some spot lights through to show the contents when it is dark or place submersible mini lights inside the water to light up the entire jar! Place test tubes and tubes of potions to resemble a science lab.
Scary Walls. Consider turning a basement or garage into a haunted house using scene setters. Cover the walls with gossamer to darken the walls or to set the scene. Gossamer is a lightweight fabric that can come printed in various prints like, bricks, stone, water, etc. and can be reused over again. Use double stick tape to fasten to the walls or suspend a wire from one end of the wall to the opposing end and then simply hang the gossamer off the wire. Make sure the wire is taut so it doesn’t sag over a period of time.
Haunted Coffin. Use an old long cardboard box and paint it to look like a coffin. Place a skeleton inside and decorate with webbing.
Creepy Crawlies. Buy large spiders and spread them everywhere. Hang them from the ceilings and from spider webs.
Visual Illusions. Use bails of hay to prop decor items on various level to create interest and depth. Put various small props like snakes, bones, coins, etc. on the hay and use spotlights to highlight and make them look larger than reality.
Hazy Vision. Get a good quality fog or smoke machine so that when people enter the haunted house, it takes them a while to see what’s inside which makes them more jumpy.
Scary Sound. Set-up a CD player with scary organ sound or scary Halloween music.
Graveyard Scene. Get inexpensive yard fencing and fence off an area to create a graveyard scene. Put up grave stones or make them yourselves using foam. Carve various pumpkins and place it on the lawn with candles inside. Use spotlights to shine on the grave stones. For pumpkin patterns, check out this site that has lots of free pumpkin patterns.
Web of Lights. String tiny light strands across your front porch, or from tree to tree in your yard, in a “spider web” design. Add huge black spiders from party supply stores, or make your own using a big garbage bag for the body and long black felt strips for the arms.
Hanging Ghosts. Hang animated hovering ghosts from tree limbs and use spider webbing to decorate the bushes and shrubs.
Tall Monster. Use a tall ladder and dress it up to look like a monster. Drape a black cape around an upright ladder. Fill gloves with stuffing or old newspapers and use those as hands. Put a mask on top of the ladder and secure with pins or clips to hold in place.

HALLOWEEN DECORATIONS

Halloween Guest Arrival and Introductory Activities

Halloween Party Photo Shoot with Pirate Jack Sparrow

When guests arrive, introduce them to one another. Keep guests entertained and busy with easy activities and crafts. Here are a few ideas to entertain a large crowd with minimal spending:

Howling Photo Shoot. As your guests enter, take Halloween pictures of your guests in costumes and print out later as favors. Have guests pose their silliest or scariest pose and ham it up!
Red Carpet Interview. Videotape and interview your guests as they arrive. Show the tape at the end of the party.
Scary Treat Bags. Give kids black bags to decorate. You can let them use their own creativity with googley eyes, make mouths, tongues, ears using felt. Use colored yarn for hair. Let the bags dry and they will be ready at the end of the party.
Candy Corn Guess. Fill a jar with candy corn and have the kids guess the number of candy corns in the jar. The one that is the closest wins. The find out the number just figure out how many candy corns are in a package and multiply by the number of candy corn packages you actually use.
Ghost Lollipops. Easy Halloween Ghost Lollipop craft that allows kids to warm up and gives them something to do while they wait for everyone else to arrive.

HALLOWEEN CRAFTS

Halloween Party Recipes

Halloween Recipes should look scary yet taste delicious. Here are some fun, crazy, and yes, even disgusting ideas to make your Halloween party a hit!

Scary Finger Cookies. Make Halloween Finger Cookies and set it up on a plate with scary props, like eye balls, cleavers and rats.
Mummy Hot dogs. Mummy Hot dogs are great as a snack. This is an easy snack to make and takes only 15 minutes to bake. You can also make this ahead of time and pop it in the oven right before serving. Get strips of refrigerated bread dough and wrap around each hot dog, leaving an opening for eyes. Bake according to directions.
Skeleton Bone Bread Sticks. Make bread sticks shaped like skeleton bones. These can also made at the same time as the mummy Hot dogs and bake them together at the same temperature. Drizzle some marinara sauce over parts of the bone bread sticks to resemble blood.
Giant Edible Mummy. Create a giant edible mummy out of food items, like Jello for the head/brain, finger sandwiches for the fingers, Bone Bread sticks for the body parts, and spaghetti for intestines and tummy area. Serve in a giant coffin.
Test Tube Drinks. Serve drinks in Test Tubs and Lab Beakers. For interest put them on different heights and levels.
Witches Brew. Serve Halloween Punch in a cauldron. If you have a fog machine next to it, even better. Float items like eyeballs (grapes halves) in the punch and put gummy worms on the edge of the cauldron.
Top 20 Gory Foods. Serve various scary and gory Halloween foods like “Hissing Madagascar Cockroaches”, Kitty Litter Cake, and Poopy Cupcakes!

HALLOWEEN TOP 20 GORY FOODS

Halloween Party Cake and Desserts

Halloween Cakes and Dessert Should you be brave enough to create one of these Halloween monsters in your own kitchen, more power to you! See the top 20 list of Gory Scary Halloween Foods!

Spider Cupcakes. Decorate cupcakes with orange icing. Pipe 3 concentric circles of chocolate icing. Using a toothpick draw lines from the middle of the cupcake towards the outside, creating a spiderweb. Heat chocolate Tootsie rolls for 5 seconds in the microwave and form into shape with your hands. Create 8 legs by slicing the Tootsie roll into small pieces and rubbing the together in your hands to form long thin legs. With another Tootsie roll, make a spider’s body. Position the spider on top of the cake.
Grave Yard Cupcakes. Make grave yard cupcakes out of peanut butter cookies, pumpkin candies and crumbled cookies. Write “RIP” on the Nutter Butter cookies and stick into the cupcake. Sprinkle crumbled chocolate cookie crumbs on top. Top with pumpkin candy and optional miniature bone candy.
Scary Eyeball Cupcakes. Keep an eye on your ghoulish guests with this scary eyeball cupcake! Cupcake is made by slicing marshmallow in half, placing brown M&M candy on top, and using red food coloring to draw in veins.
Bodyparts Cupcakes. Ice cupcake with orange icing and position feet gummy candy on top to create Cupcakes topped with Bodyparts. Use red icing to create smudges of blood.
Haunted House Cake. Make a haunted house cake out of batter, icing, and candies in various shapes. Add ghost marshmallows, candy corn, pumpkins, and grave yards around the house. Use pretzel sticks to make trees. You can also add mini-Christmas lights to light up at night around the cake.
Vampire Teeth Cupcakes. Top cupcake with vampire teeth gummy candy to create Vampire Teeth Cupcakes. As an option, add red icing gel to simulate blood.
Halloween Peeps. Put out some Halloween Peep Candy on a dessert tray or top off cupcakes with these fun marshmallow treats. Comes in Spooky Ghost or Happy Pumpkin shape. Who can resist these soft, springy, and treats?!

HALLOWEEN CANDY

Halloween Party Games and Activities

Printable Halloween Games are an easy option to break the ice and get guests feel comfortable. It is a great way to keep early guests busy until everyone arrives. Pick a few games that will fit the age group that will be attending your party.

Printable Halloween Games. Purchase and download Classic Games like Halloween Bingo, Draw the Pumpkin, Which Witch is Which?, Pin the Tail on the Cat, and Treasure Hunts, never go old and are loved by all ages. Download as many copies of any of the 50 games as you wish and games are suitable for parties, like Halloween, Fall and Thanksgiving.
Dress a Scare Crow Contest. Divide group into various teams. Give each group 4 black garbage bags, 4 paper grocery bags, 4 milk cartons and colored duct tape. Each group has 15-20 minutes to come up with an outfit for their scare crow. Give prizes like the most creative, the funniest, the most fashionable, etc. Give ribbons or sashes to each scare crow and take a picture with each team. Another option is to only use recyclable materials. So instead of the new black garbage bags use newspapers, grocery bags, etc. instead. Older kids really enjoy this activity as it requires more creativity and problem-solving skills.
Mummy Wrap. Split group into 2 teams. Wrap up one person from the opposing team in toilet paper. Once the entire roll is used, the “mummy” and his/her team needs to find the grave. The team will be given clues and the first to find their team’s grave, wins.
Freeze Dance. The usual freeze dance game to pop, fun, Halloween music. Kids must do scary poses when they freeze and the music stops. Whoever is still moving, is ‘out’. Continue playing until there’s only one person left. That person wins.
Witch Hunt. Place cutouts of witches all around the basement area. Give kids each a flash light and split the group into teams. See which team collects the most witches. Put a maximum on the number of witches any group can collect so that all teams have a chance to collect an equal number.
Ride on the Witch’s Broom. This game is played like the traditional Victorian game “Pass the Ball” but we are using a broom instead. Have the kids sit in a circle. Play a Halloween song and pass the broom around the circle. After a few rounds, stop the song. Whoever is left holding the broom gets to zip around the circle with the broom. They can ‘fly’ to the treasure chest to pick out a prize. This person then becomes ‘out’ and the game continues until there is no one left.
Pumpkin Decorating. Give each guest a small pumpkin and let them decorate with natural materials like vegetables, fruits, nuts, etc. Another option is to use safe paints to decorate and to color in the faces of the pumpkins. Pumpkin decorating kits are also available for ready to go party action.
Pumpkin Carving. Get carving supplies and give adult guests a pumpkin to carve. Give out prizes for the best, funniest, pathetic, craziest, etc. pumpkin. Spread them out in the yard afterwards and light up as it gets dark. Great way to spend a Fall evening outdoors looking at the twinkle lights of the Jack-O-Lanterns.

Halloween Party Favors

Halloween Treat Bag and Trick-or-Treat Sleeve Bag. This makes a great Halloween party craft, and take home treat. Add in a sleeve, made out of old pillow cases, that doubles as a treat bag and you are good to go! Fun, easy and inexpensive!

Glow lights. Glow lights are always useful favors for Halloween. Kids can wear them around their neck during Trick-or-Treating so they are visible and helps keep them safe. Also a popular favor for teens and adults.
Treat Bags. Use the treat bags made at the beginning of the party during the Introductory Activities as favor bags. Fill with trinkets, pictures, and treats to take home. Kids can reuse the bags during Halloween for trick-or-treating.
Halloween Bracelets. Fun bracelets to take home or others to make yourself.
Halloween Bubbles. Bubbles are fun for all ages. Bubbles comes with assorted characters like ghosts, goblins, pumpkins and draculas.
Spider Ring. No Halloween would be complete without a spider ring on your finger. Rings are one size fits all.
Eerie Eyeballs. Add in some scary bloodshot eyeballs, like eyeball candy, eyeball bouncy balls, animated flashing eyeballs, and eyeball lollipops.
Halloween Hi Bounce Balls. A favorite favor and see who’s Halloween bouncy ball bounces the highest!
Gummy Body parts. Give out gummy body parts candy as fun gag favor.
Candy Cash. Give out Candy Cash in various movie or party themes.
Halloween Candy. Halloween Candy for Trick or Treats or favors.
Pumpkin Squeeze Balls. Pumpkin Squeeze Ball for those who need stress relief, like tactile stimulus or just to squeeeeze!
Mini Pumpkin Mug Favor Holder. Use these mini pumpkin mugs to hold candy and use as a party favor. Wrap in cellophane bag and fill with your candy or trinket of choice.

HALLOWEEN FAVORS

Other Halloween Party Cake Ideas

Halloween Costume Ideas

Halloween M&M Costume – How To

Halloween Theme Party Ideas

Share/Bookmark

Tags: adult party, diy, halloween parties, holiday parties, Invitations, kids party, teen party, theme parties |
Filed Under Halloween

Halloween Party Ideas

Halloween Party Plan