Last weekend we had a party at our house to celebrate not one, but TWO birthdays! My little Megan turned 2 at the end of September and my son Adam will be 4 in a couple of weeks, so we thought we'd put them together to have one big October bash! Adam requested a Halloween-themed party so we ran with it! I just thought I'd share some of the ways (10, to be exact!) we celebrated:
1. Graveyard Cake
Adam saw a picture of a graveyard cake in a recipe book we have and it was love at first sight! These are super easy and fun to make--just bake and frost a sheet cake, crumble some Oreos on top, pop some decorated Milano cookies on for tombstones and--Viola! We added some candy corn and pumpkins for extra color. If you want a grassy look you can dye shredded coconut green in lieu of Oreos. Or, if you want to get extra fancy combine the two to make grassy patches with a dirt path!
2. Caramel Apple Cupcakes
I wanted Megan to have her own special party cake, too, so I made these adorable caramel apple cupcakes! I got the idea from
Family Fun. I used boxed spice cake mix, added diced apples to the mix and frosted them with cream cheese frosting (dyed brown). Just pop a mini stick on top, embellish with nuts & sprinkles and you're done! I'm all about the cute cakes that are EASY to make! I learned my lesson the hard way when I spent SEVEN HOURS constructing a castle cake for my son Luke a couple of years ago. Gah!
Never. Again. Moving on...
3.Monster Eyeball Race (A Party Game!)
I saw this cute googly-eyed playdough floating around on
Pinterest and thought, "Hmmm, why not turn this into a game?" So, I decided to make it a race to see who could remove all 10 eyes from their playdoh first. It was a hit! The kids kept track of how many eyes they'd removed by using little number strips I made. I also created fun little labels to make the playdoh look extra spooky.
4. Monster Mash (Halloween Version of Musical Chairs!)
I found this idea in an old Halloween magazine I had at home. To play just print out some fun monster faces and place them in a circle on the floor, making sure there is one less face than the number of players. Next you blast the song "Monster Mash" (or other spooky music!) and have the kids do some kooky dancing. When the music pauses, the kids must race to sit on a monster face. Whoever didn't make it to a face is out. Keep reducing the number of monster faces until you have a winner! The kids loved this game and it's super simple to set up. Even more fun with goofy monster masks on!
5. Eyeball "Fishing" Game!
For this game, I ordered some
gooey sticky eyeballs from Oriental Trading. I then placed little papers all over the floor (mine had spiders printed on them, but you can use whatever you like!). The kids had to "fish" for the spiders using their eyeballs! For extra fun I placed a couple of pumpkin stickers
on the back of some of the papers to determine the winners. I think this game was the favorite! My boys were playing on their own for days after the party was over!
6. Bat Brew (Orange Halloween Punch!)
Nothing says Halloween quite like this festive orange punch--complete with floating bats and dry ice! I found the recipe on Google (I don't remember the specific site! Sorry!). To make it simply combine:
--1 2L Orange Soda
--1 2L fresh orange juice
--1 large can pineapple juice
--1 tub orange sherbet
Just pop some plastic bats and a hunk of dry ice in to complete your "Bat Brew!"
7. Spooky Decorations!
To decorate simply and quickly I used some scrapbook paper, a few printables (thanks to Pinterest!) and a little creativity! I covered our existing photos hanging on the walls with some scrapbook paper, printables and silhouettes I had cut out. I didn't even put them under the glass! I just used scotch tape to stick them to the outside of the frames.
SO EASY!
...before
...after!
I used scrapbook paper and bats cut from card stock to decorate our cabinets.
...more printable fun! (and black webbing to boot! Woo-hoo!)
The ceiling decorations were also a cinch to make. I just decorated plain balloons with spooky images using a Sharpie. I hung them upside-down in rows and draped some scrunched-up streamers between them.
8. Spooky Foods!Our menu included some SPOOK-tacular foods to eat! It's even more fun to display the food with labels and Creepy Names! A few of our dishes were:
*Baked Riga-BONEY (get it??)
*Zombie Toes(pigs-in-a-blanket wrapped to look like toes!)
*Monster Eye Dip
(e.g. Taco Dip with sliced green olive "eyeballs" on top of gooey cheese!)
Sadly, I don't have any pics of our spooky foods. I was just so busy with all of the activities going on that I completely forgot to snap some shots of the table. So, you'll just have to use your imagination for these. Apologies. :)
9. Glass Jar Goodness!
One of my favorite ways to decorate for holidays is filling glass jars with all kinds of goodies and embellishments. For this party I made a jar of "Rotten Witches Teeth" from scrapbook paper, a cupcake liner and a printable label (courtesy of Pinterest! Can you tell yet that I'm a Pinterest fan?!).
My sister gave me this gorgeous glass jar from
Pier One Imports filled with a yummy Ginger Peach candle and these adorable glass bats and ghosts! LOVE IT! (Thanks, Sis!)
aaaaaaaand, last but not least...
10. Spider Web Party Favors! (i.e. Cotton Candy)
No party is complete without fun little goodies to take home! I picked up some bags of Cotton Candy and covered them with a spider web label I made. I then glued a little orange spiders on the webs to complete to look. Cotton Candy is so much fun because it's something kids don't get to have very often. (And who doesn't love the fun texture?!)
That wraps up my list of Halloween party ideas! I hope this helped get your creative juices flowing if you're planning a Halloween party this year. (And if you're not on Pinterest yet, go get on there immediately! If you need an invite email me and I'll send you one! It's AMAZING! )
shared with:
(Don't worry, I promise no little fingers were injured in this process!)
(My tortilla is the scary one. The "minis" are for Megan.)
(Adam's and Luke's are much cuter and sweeter than my scary one!)
This is what it looks like when it's finished!
