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Ideas and tips for organising a Spooky Party!Brought your imagination along? Great! Let's organise a Spooky Party!
Be creative!
Invitations
Invitations for your spooky party can easily be made using using black cardboard or construction paper. Use crayons or paint and colours such as orange and green. Cut out shapes of black cats, ghosts or bats. A black haunted house could be opened to reveal a white ghost on which the invitation is written. Use wording to foretell the spooky experience ahead! For example, "Wicked Pete dares you to come to a spooky party at The Haunted House, 1 Smith Street" You can add "Mummies welcome" at the bottom of the card.
Decorations Have fun making your Spooky Party scary! - drape white sheets over the furniture. Buy some spider webs from a costume shop or create your own with big blobs of stretched out cotton wool. You can also use black and/or white wool. Make sure to hang some plastic spiders from your spiderwebs! Decorate your spooky party area with orange and black balloons and streamers. Rip some white sheets apart and tie them around each balloon. Tie a string under the balloon for the neck. Now draw a face (some eyes, nose and a mouth) on the 'face' of the ghost. These can be hung in trees outside the house or inside. You may even want to use helium balloons for these. Place plastic spiders, insects or other plastic creepy crawlies around your spooky party! Have some spooky music playing in the background. Create a really spooky atmosphere with dry ice in a bucket. Use two parts water to one part dry ice. Warm water will create a thicker fog but won't last as long. Cooler water will last longer but the fog will be thinner. (Just make sure that this is not within any child's reach). If you don't have any of the above spooky stuff lying around, here's a selection of spooky decorations...
Games The Spooky Mummy Game Divide children into groups of 3. One child is the 'Mummy' and the other two are the 'Dressers'. Using rolls of of toilet paper, the two 'Dressers' have to dress the 'Mummy'. The first group to finish dressing their 'Mummy' are the winners. The Mad Scientist Exhibit For this game you will need a cardboard box with a hole cut out in the front for the children to put their hand through. Placing different foods in bowls, the children have to guess what they are. Pretending they are in a mad scientist's scary laboratory. Jelly can be a liver, peeled grapes an be eyeballs, cooked spaghetti can be intestines, peanut shells - toenails, boiled caulifloewr - brains. You get the idea. Pin the Bone on the Skeleton Taken from the classic Pin the Tail on the Donkey using a skeleton instead. You can buy a cardboard skeleton at a Party Shop or make your own. Depends how creative you are! Spooky Story What's a Spooky Party without a scary story? This game is great if you have a karoake machine and the kids can use the microphone. If you are inside, close the curtains to try and make the room as dark as possible. Get all the children to sit in a circle. Each child has a turn at contributing to the spooky story with roughly 3 sentences each. If the room is dark enough, a torch can be held by each child under their chin (pointing upwards) when telling their story. Spider Trap Give each child a small roll of black wool (about the size of a golf ball will do). Tie some of that wool around each child's waist then ask them to hold the remaining ball of wool. With all the children standing in a circle, each child takes a turn at throwing the ball of wool to another child in the circle. That child loops the wool around their waist once then has their turn at throwing the ball of wool. Watch and laugh as they get themselves caught up in a maze of spiderwebs! Monster Statues For this game, children simply move around the room 'monster-fashion' to music, making suitable monster or spooky noises! When the music stops they must hold whatever position they are in for several seconds until the music starts again. Anyone who moves has to sit out. Maybe you've decided to do some Arts and Crafts at your spooky party? Here are some simple, great and free ideas for adding some Spooky Craft Projects to your day. We did these at home ourselves. As the photos show, they're simple (but impressive!) projects. We have loads more Games here - check them out.
Costumes This is so much fun! One very important tip for any spooky party is to have some extra dress-ups for those who come without a costume. Have these extras in a box at the front door. Use what you have - dig deep into your cupboards or visit local thrift stores for costume pieces. Wear black or purple and add accessories such as tails, masks, antennae, horns, cloaks, wigs, false nails and teeth. You can hire commercial costumes, however I reckon half the fun is working with your child to make a costume. Get your kids involved in the process -- they’ll be proud to wear a costume they’ve helped make. Below are some basic ideas for you to play with. All are cheap, easy, and allow for tons of imagination.
The old Spooky Ghost: Cover your child with an old white sheet, cut out holes for the eyes. Make sure the sheet is not too long - so they don't trip over. A variation of this is to dress your ghost up (after all, it is going to a spooky party!). Use the same old white sheet, cut out holes for the eyes and a small slit for the mouth. Then dress it up a little. Put eye shadow and lashes around the eyes. Lipstick for the mouth. Put a little color on the cheeks. You could color in a beard or moustache. You could dress your ghost up by placing a wig or a hat on top! Quasimodo the Hunchback of Notre Dame Build the "hunchback" out of foam or cardboard. Find an old coat several sizes too large to wear over the "hunch". Old, ratty clothes are great! Wear an old messy wig and walk with a limp. Mummy Using an old shredded sheet, wrap your child like a mummy. Strategically place cream coloured masking tape where it is needed. A stiff-legged gait works perfectly!
Good 'ole Dracula
Dracula just needs the art of good face make-up. You can dress him in all black drape him in a black sheet. Maybe add the final touch of a red bow tie. I've dressed my son Ned in a black cape we had lying around the house and used my imagination painting his face.
Spider Dress in a black t-shirt and black pants. For the legs grab some cheap black pantyhose, stuff with anything dark and light-weight. Either sew, or staple to keep stuffing from falling out. Pin to clothing, add a little black make-up smudged on the face. My Tip: You can hire a face painter or DIY. There are some face paints available for both boys and girls spooky themes. If you don't have too creative a flair, check out this great face-painting e-book. It's been written by a couple of Aussie girls who are highly qualified and good at what they do! It has some super designs and caters for the beginner to the more experienced face painter. If you are game to do-it-yourself, make sure you click on our Face Painting page to get some tips and ideas.
Fruit Punch Make a fruit punch with any fruit juice and soda water. Using latex gloves, fill each glove with red or green (or any colour) cordial and freeze. When frozen, peel the glove off and add to the fruit punch. Guaranteed to get some squeals of delight at your spooky party! Magic Potion For a very fizzy (spooky) effect, place a few frozen chocolate drops at the botton of each glass. Then fill the glasses with sparkling drink.
Ants on a Log Ingredients: celery sticks, sultanas, cream cheese. Wash the celery and cut it into 5cm pieces. Spread cream cheese onto the celery stick, from one end to the other. Press sultanas into the peanut butter Spooky Bat Wings This is very easy spooky party recipe. Just buy marinated chicken wings and bake them in the oven. Spider Crackers Ingredients: Jatz or Ritz biscuits, Pretzel sticks, Cream cheese, sultanas. Spread cream cheese onto biscuit. Place 4 pretzel sticks across the cream cheese (spider legs). Put another biscuit on top and, using cream cheese, stick two sultanas on top for eyes. Jelly Critters Put jelly snakes or frogs into clear plastic cups. Add some black food colouring to jelly mixture and fill cups with jelly. Arrange snakes to hang over the side of the cup. Black and green grapes Just place them in a bowl! Jelly Plate Scoop out the flesh from half a watermelon with a melon baller. Half fill with black or purple jelly. When the jelly has set, spoon melon balls on top. Vary with rock melon or green melon. Spider Cakes Bake some little patty cakes with this basic recipe Dribble some icing over the top and place jelly worms on top.
Ghost Biscuits Using the butter biscuits recipe, cut these biscuits before baking into shapes (bat, ghost). Ice bats with dark icing and ghosts with white icing and draw eyes, nose and mouth with dark icing. Or try making other scary cookies with some spooky shaped Cookie Cutters. There are more food ideas over on our Birthday Party Recipes page..... We have two cake samples with photos - an easy-to-make Spooky Cake made in a number shape with spider webs and an even easier spooky Spider Cake for those like love the real simple ones. Fill some latex gloves with popcorn. Tie at the wrist with black ribbon and hand out at the end of the party. To make "ghostly goodies," for your spooky party, place a plastic spider or insect and some snakes and frog sweets in the middle of a 9-inch circle of black fabric. Gather up in the centre and tie with white yarn. For you really busy parents (like me) you could buy your own party bags already made-up. Last, but definitely not least, we've got some free printable Thank-You Notes for you to add your personal message to say "Thanks".
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