Costume Ideas for Couples

Posts Tagged ‘Halloween party’

Planning your kids’ Halloween party need not be bubble, bubble, toil and trouble. Here are ideas and recipes for a unique party that your little witches and warlocks will talk about for months to come.

When planning a Halloween party, the first thing to do is to send invitations. You can make invitations easily using your home computer and, if your children are old enough, they may like to design and print these themselves.

To avoid the frustration of people arriving at your party who have not RSVP’d, a good tip is to purposely omit the party’s commencement time from the invitation. Instead, add the line, ‘Please RSVP to know the party’s start time’ – this should significantly decrease the number of ‘gatecrashers’.

Costumes are next on the ‘to-do’ list and to kids this is one of the most exciting aspects of Halloween. Before talking with your children about the options, bear the following in mind:-

• Select a costume for your child that won’t disintegrate before the night’s festivities are over and one that won’t make the child feel too hot or cold.

• For safety’s sake, ensure the costume will not hamper your child’s movement.

• Face paint is a safer alternative to a visibility-impairing mask.

• If the costume is elaborate, dress your child in simple clothing underneath. This way they can easily slip out of it to play games, take a break or visit the toilet.

Costumes can be purchased, hired or home-made. If you’re considering the latter, there are hundreds of websites with a glut of unique ideas – head for Google!

As with any party, you can either keep the décor simple with streamers and balloons or go all out and create your own Haunted House. When planning the party’s décor, do consider the ages of the children attending. Younger ones may find just a few hanging bats sufficiently scary, while most teenagers enjoy a heavily themed venue with scary ambient music and sound effects.

Store-bought cobwebs and dimmed lights are wonderful additions to the Halloween atmosphere too. Older kids delight in sitting down to eat at a themed party table. All you need is a black or purple tablecloth, a vase of dead flowers, tealight candles and a scattering of small party favours to set the scene for a ghoulish supper. If the table is not large enough to accommodate all your guests, use it to display your food and beverages and provide a buffet meal.

What would a party be without food? A quick Google search will result in many Halloween recipes for some superb but gruesome sounding food including Kitty-litter Cake, Baked Bones and Dracula's Blood Pudding. You can really get creative when it comes to Halloween food but it’s best to keep it simple and not too gross-sounding for the younger elementary ages.

When it comes to drinks, a Halloween party isn’t complete without a bowl of punch. Maybe you’d like to try a Blood Bath? This is made by mixing 64 ounces of cran-raspberry cocktail and four cups of apple juice with four cups of vanilla ice cream. Or perhaps you would prefer a Toxic Punch? For this combine four litres of chilled green lemon-lime soda, 24 ounces of orange juice concentrate, two packets of blue Kool-Aid and a few drops of green food colouring.

When planning your Halloween children’s party, prepare two to three games ahead of time. It’s also a good idea to have an extra little game or activity ready just in case. Children can be unpredictable (no way – I hear you say!) and you need to be flexible – so, if a game is not working or is not being enjoyed, having a back-up means that you can easily substitute one with another.

Many well known party games can be given a Halloween twist – for instance Pin the Hat on the Witch and Pass the Pumpkin. Halloween’s classic game however is Bobbing for Apples in a bowl of water. At our parties we quickly follow this (with faces still wet) with a game of Bobbing for Marshmallows – on a plate of flour.

As an activity, making ‘Ectoplasm’ is always a big Halloween party hit. This eerie substance is made by combining two cups of cornstarch, one cup of water and a few drops of green food colouring. It is made in seconds, is a great consistency to play with and guests can also take some home in a sturdy zip-lock bag!

It is always a good idea to provide a quiet corner at parties for children who are not into games. Crayons, some colouring-in sheets, a batch of play dough and a few biscuit-cutters will keep little hands occupied. At sites like Hello Kitty Coloring Pages you’ll find the best Hello Kitty coloring sheetwhile little boys would perhaps enjoy the coloring sheets at Pokemon Coloring Pages.

As an entertaining extra activity, fill a plastic jar with sweets and have each guest write their best guess as to how many are in the jar. This is a good game to play at the beginning of the party, as guests filter in. Announce the winner at the end of the party – the champion wins the jar! As your guests leave, surprise them with some spooky treats to take home.

One of the simplest and most effective inclusions in the traditional goody bag of sweets and chocolates is the Ghost Pop. Place a square piece of white tissue paper (or kitchen roll paper) over a lollipop, tie with a small elastic to make a head and then use a black marker to draw eyes on the ghost. These small treats also make great prizes for games.

Finally, remember to charge your camera and camcorder and capture each spell-binding moment.

 By October 31st the dark nights become longer and colder, and it’s possible to imagine another world of Halloween spirits, walking dead, werewolves, skeletons and goblins. You may be one of the many hosts planning to invite your friends dressed as these sinister specters into your home that evening for a Halloween costume party.
 

 Perhaps you will be arranging a Halloween party this year, and thinking about good Halloween ideas.

 First, who are your guests? Your whole approach will be different for children or adults. If a broad age range of family guests will be invited, you will need to plan how to meet the different needs of each group as the evening goes on, and make the entertainment more frightening after the little children go to bed for the night.

 When you have your guest list, and have chosen a suitable date, time and place, its time to prepare your Halloween party invitations. This is a fun thing to do. Part of the attraction of Halloween is how many variations there are on the ghostly themes. Your invitation should be novel, colorful and scary, but be sensitive about doing things like including imitation body parts to fall out of the envelope. Not everyone will see that as a joke. You should tell your guests if they are expected to wear Halloween costumes. Don’t forget to include an RSVP so you know how many guests to cater for.

 Halloween decorations inside and out can take time to set up but make the evening more memorable. A cemetery scene with tombstones is a great idea, with subdued lighting, images of ghosts and ghouls, hairy spiders and their webs, sound effects and perhaps even a fog machine. Halloween is about Jack-o-lanterns made out of pumpkins with a candle inside. You will need to make quite a few, in different sizes, to help set the atmosphere.

 If you have made jack o’ lanterns from pumpkins your party menu might include pumpkin soup and pumpkin pie. It’s fun to create a scary Halloween menu for the party food. However, following the horror theme to an excess with Halloween decorations when laying out your table can detract from the pleasure and fun your guests will have at your party. Instead focus on food with a Halloween theme to make for a memorable party.

 You will need to decide whether you will be serving a full dinner or just finger food. A sit down dinner or a buffet? The meal can be a good time to distribute party favors, especially if your party bag includes jokes, games or other things that will stimulate conversation.

 Buying, hiring or making Halloween costumes needs to be planned in plenty of time. Inviting your guests to wear costumes is a very effective way to get your guests into a party mood, to get conversations started and to get people laughing, but you need to tell them soon enough. Going a step further and having your guest wear masks is a traditional way of making your guests less self conscious, and to start conversations. It helps if you can learn how to face paint especially to make up children with Halloween face painting designs.

 Halloween music and sound effects should be used to help set the atmosphere as part of the party entertainment, but at some point your older guests will be wanting to dance to the latest hits. Making up a compilation of music specially for the evening on your computer can be fun. You may also want to include short or full horror movies in the entertainment.

 Party games and spooky Halloween themed entertainment activities add to the good times. A good organizer and some prizes help to get everyone participating.