halloween party

Heineken Helen

So we're planning on having one this year but I wanna go all out and make the house look deadly .

On a budget though :?

Already have quite a few ideas but wondering if there are any more?

edvedderrocks

my friend had one a while back... moved all furniture out of the party rooms and lined the walls with black paper and had some kind of strobe/blacklight. Was pretty cool.

thoses spiderwebs in a bag are really cheap and go a long way... and look great if you do them right.

Martha Stewart has a line of really cool Halloween labels for wine bottle and otherthings that you could look at for ideas, but easily make yourself. You can also get old stuff from the basement (fake flowers, old pottery) and spraypaint them black or gray and put them aroung for decoration.

Scatter candy jars around the room filled with candycorn...

Also, you can put wierd photos of bugs, scary stuff that you print from the internet into frames that you already have.

Hope I helped a little. Now I want to have a Halloween Party! :shock:

Enkidu

I think Martha Stewart is pretty creepy. But on the other hand, she does great Halloween stuff. There's a magazine out here in the US that's the best of her Halloween decor and I just bought it. A lot of it is super cheap to do. I just found this on her website.

http://www.marthastewart.com/photogalle ... g#slide_10

And we do a version of this at our house and it looks great. Easy to do, too.

http://www.marthastewart.com/photogalle ... n#slide_29

Heineken Helen

edvedderrocks wrote:

my friend had one a while back... moved all furniture out of the party rooms and lined the walls with black paper and had some kind of strobe/blacklight. Was pretty cool.

thoses spiderwebs in a bag are really cheap and go a long way... and look great if you do them right.

Martha Stewart has a line of really cool Halloween labels for wine bottle and otherthings that you could look at for ideas, but easily make yourself. You can also get old stuff from the basement (fake flowers, old pottery) and spraypaint them black or gray and put them aroung for decoration.

Scatter candy jars around the room filled with candycorn...

Also, you can put wierd photos of bugs, scary stuff that you print from the internet into frames that you already have.

Hope I helped a little. Now I want to have a Halloween Party! :shock:

Ooohh... thank you... yep, we were gonna put black plastic all over the walls and maybe ceilings and have black light and also thought of replacing the photos with scary pics, white sheets on the furniture, 'punch' could be bloody mary, fairy lights, cut up sheets over windows.

That website looks great thanks, gonna spend a few hours on it

Heineken Helen

Enkidu wrote:

I think Martha Stewart is pretty creepy. But on the other hand, she does great Halloween stuff. There's a magazine out here in the US that's the best of her Halloween decor and I just bought it. A lot of it is super cheap to do. I just found this on her website.

http://www.marthastewart.com/photogalle ... g#slide_10

And we do a version of this at our house and it looks great. Easy to do, too.

http://www.marthastewart.com/photogalle ... n#slide_29

Seriously... pumpkin pie pot pourri????? I love it

Lizard

You could carve a pumpkin with a face and put a candle in it!!

Enkidu

There were two more cool things in this Martha Stewart magazine - it's called The Best of Martha Stewart Halloween Handbook.

Hang cheesecloth from the ceiling and rip it and tear holes in it and it sort of looks like spiderwebs.

Also - break one or two green eight hour light sticks and put into white balloons. Inflate, tie closed. Use a black marker to draw on scary faces. Tape anywhere you want - the picture looks really great.

Dissidentman

Holy sheet!

Green Circle

Dissidentman wrote:

Holy sheet!

very good

Green Circle

Oriental Trading

http://www.orientaltrading.com

great ideas cheap!!

pandora

I use what have around from previous years and make monsters for trick or treat night out of old masks and capes and costumes.
I use floor lamps and colored bulbs and put the masks over them, their eyes glow eerily, add a hanger and put a cape or costume over it etc.
The alien sits in a chair and has a pillow for stuffing, a flashing strobe light to make a belt. etc.
Kids of all ages like them and come back each year to see them

Don't forget the fog machine!

Cateeto

Helen, just check out my pictures and grab ideas from them from facebook

What I always find to help on a budget is to buy the black plastic tarps from the hardware store and drape them over the walls and/or furniture. I also like to buy white sheets from the thrift stores in town and cover my furniture with them for a haunted mansion type of look. And yes!!! The cheap spider webs really are what set the feel for the party. You can grab 3 bags of those for under 5 dollars and it will cover your whole house!

Bloody up your own white sheets with red paint. Drap it over doorways. It looks spooky. You can also get the same effect from cheese cloth. Bloody that up too! And it's cheap! Hang that from the walls!

Orange and black streamer looks cool. It's cheap too. When you put that up, don't be neat about it. Rip it, toss it around, have it hanging unevenly from the ceiling... it will give a nice spooky, worn in effect.

Spend your money on the lighting. That's what makes the party the most. I cannot hesitate this enough! You can buy plenty of colored lightbulbs basically anywhere. Avoid Halloween stores for these, as they overcharge. You can buy green, orange, red, purple for about 2-3 bucks a bulb. The black light bulbs are just okay. They do create light, but it's more purple than anything. Those can be bought for about a dollar anywhere. What really makes the party is throwing in a few black lights here and there though. You'll be amazed at how awesome everybody's costumes will look under them! They're a little pricey, but so worth it!

If you have anymore questions, you know where to find me!

Cradles Broken Glass

I have to go with the Martha Stewart ideas too. She had a show a couple of years back and they run it constantly during October, but it has really cute, economical ideas on it. Have fun!

Heineken Helen

Aw thank you all... pandora and cateeto, your pics are brilliant . Luckily I'm hoping to have a team of helpers over the night before to help with the decorations so yep, definitely, black plastic and white sheets are gonna be my biggest purchases... and plenty of webs. Thanks for the tips on lighting, I was wondering which colour bulbs would work best... what about red? I'm gonna leave the bathroom and kitchen alone I reckon... so it will be the sitting room, hall and conservatory. Anyone tried red light bulbs?

Heineken Helen

Oh I also need costume ideas... I don't usually do fancy dress cos I'm not at all creative lol, so completely clueless.

haffajappa

My brother usually has big halloween parties at our house.
One year before leaving for work he asked me to help decorate... I had some red lightbulbs and thee was this really old ugly 3-lightbulb fixture on the ceiling so i changed all the white light bulbs to red and made a giant spider on the ceiling with garbage bags.. it looked pretty cool like it had red eyes and pretty anatomically correct if you ask me!

Garbage bags are also great if you slice them into strips and hang them in doorways and stuff..
...anything can be done with household items! When I was a kid my dad and I used to always make halloween decorations out of anything we could find...

And it was a good party anyways... that's where i got drunker than i've ever been (even drunker than when i was at your house on st. paddys! ) and met my current bf. Anyone who would date me after that night is a keeper. :shock:

Heineken Helen

haffajappa wrote:

My brother usually has big halloween parties at our house.
One year before leaving for work he asked me to help decorate... I had some red lightbulbs and thee was this really old ugly 3-lightbulb fixture on the ceiling so i changed all the white light bulbs to red and made a giant spider on the ceiling with garbage bags.. it looked pretty cool like it had red eyes and pretty anatomically correct if you ask me!

Garbage bags are also great if you slice them into strips and hang them in doorways and stuff..
...anything can be done with household items! When I was a kid my dad and I used to always make halloween decorations out of anything we could find...

And it was a good party anyways... that's where i got drunker than i've ever been (even drunker than when i was at your house on st. paddys! ) and met my current bf. Anyone who would date me after that night is a keeper. :shock:

lol, drunker than that night? Wow! Yep, that's what I love about halloween, seems you just have to buy a million bin bags, rip up some old sheets and that's it.