Welcome!  Whether you’re planning the ultimate Halloween Fright Frenzy or just want to make the holiday a little more spooky and fun for your little ones, you’ve come to the right place!

You’ll find lots of ideas for Children’s Party Games, and some Adult Games as well, to help make your party a Haunting Success.

Entertain the Goblins on your list by pulling out your cauldron and brewing up a batch of gooey, green Slime!

Need some help decorating the mansion?  Check out our Halloween Props category for lots if eerie effects.

Halloween as become one of the most celebrated holidays of the year, second only to Christmas.  We’ve come a long way from the days when we put a Jack-’o-Lantern on the front porch and sent our kids out Trick-Or-Treating in a sheet with the eyes cut out.

In this blog, you’ll find plenty of decorating, party and costume ideas to help make this Halloween the Scariest Ever!  Have fun!

Popcorn is a popular treat handed out on Halloween, and is always a favorite at parties! If you’re looking for more than just plain popcorn,   Popcornopolis is a premium gourmet popcorn retailer who specializes in the best-tasting flavored popcorns, caramel apples, candied nuts and confections. They’ve even designed high-tech “cones” to hold their product which will guarantee their legendary “just-popped” taste.

Their best-selling items include Gourmet Zebra Popcorn, Best of Popcornopolis Gift Basket, 3-Way Popcorn Chocolate Lovers Tin, and Gourmet Caramel Popcorn. Plus, all of their “Create-Your-Own” items are wildly popular.

Visit Popcornopolis as you plan your Halloween party and treat hand-outs this year!

Kids of all ages are looking forward to Halloween – it’s hard to say who has more fun with it – little kids or older ones (or the adults!). It’s the time when they can play tricks on other kids and older people and they also get a chance to ask for candies and other treats from the different houses they visit while dressed up as their favorite character du jour.  During Halloween Season, you will often see lawns decorated with pumpkins and spooky props including monsters, vampires and coffins. Some people even use lighting and sound effects to help make their yards extra scary.

If you would like to put pumpkins on your lawn, you might be looking for designs for pumpkin painting.  Decorating pumpkins with paint is not that hard (I think it’s easier than carving!). When the Halloween season is near, you can start looking for excellent decorating ideas. You can decorate the pumpkins together with your family and closest friends.

First and foremost, you have to shop for a pumpkin that preferably has a relatively flat bottom surface. It doesn’t have to be really flat; even only a slightly flat surface on one side will do, depending on the decoration you want to paint on it. You will need to keep this in mind especially if you have smaller kids joining the painting session, but if everyone is a little bit older, usually most any pumpkin will do.

Once you’ve purchased the pumpkins, drop by your local discount or craft store. Acrylic paints are more suitable for pumpkin painting. You should get several different colors especially if you have kids helping out so that they can create their own crazy designs and color mixes.

Before you start the painting session, you first must determine the design. You can create scary designs or even funny designs. You can find a lot of designs on the Web even if you log on for just several minutes. You just have to type the words ‘pumpkin painting’ and many results will be displayed on the screen.

You can even paint silly or famous celebrity faces your pumpkins. While this is more difficult because you have to concentrate a little more on the details – give it a go and see what you come up with.  Sometimes, the goofier, the better!  Then you can put wigs and ties on that the pumpkins to accentuate the face.  (Hair is a great way to cover up any “boo boos”).  To make a good celebrity face design on the pumpkins, you simply have to put the distinguishing feature of the celebrity and exaggerate it a bit.

You can also make other designs besides faces – you can make monster designs, animal designs and many others. Pick something that you’re interested in so that it will be a lot easier to paint on the pumpkin (your creativity will come to you easier if it’s something you like).

Aside from the acrylic paints, you will need to have several different sizes of paint brushes and small containers where you can mix different colors. Sit someplace comfortable and be sure to spread lots of newspapers around. Put the paints, brushes, and other materials over the newspaper where everyone can reach them easily. Give each family member a pumpkin and then have some fun!

This can be an exciting activity for the whole family and friends for the upcoming Halloween. You can even put lights inside the pumpkin heads (if you’ve carved them out of course) to make the design more visible at night. Do your pumpkin painting a day or two before Halloween. This way, you’ll have time to prepare for your costumes, treats, candies, and other things that you will use for this very special occasion. Enjoy pumpkin painting with your family and friends.  This year’s Halloween will surely be extra memorable – and don’t forget to take pictures of your creations!

NEVER TOO EARLY FOR HALLOWEEN!

STRAIGHT FROM THE GRAVE

46″ TALL

CREEPY SOUNDS

BATTERY OPERATED- TAKES 3 AA BATTERIES (NOT INCLUDED)

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Everyone loves B-I-N-G-O!  Now, there’s G-H-O-S-T!

What you will need:

• Orange poster board or other heavy paper
• Inexpensive Bingo game – around 5 or 6 dollars at a discount store
• Black marker, scissors and a ruler
• Candy Corn

Preparation:

• Cut out as many Bingo cards as you will need from the orange paper.
• Use the black marker and ruler to draw the grids and numbers on each card.  Use the store bought Bingo cards as a guide.
• Instead of BINGO at the top, print GHOST
• Draw a ghost or use a Halloween Sticker for the Free Space

How to play:

• Call the game using the balls from the BINGO game that you bought, but subsitute the GHOST letters for the BINGO letters.
• The children use Candy Corn to mark their GHOST cards
• When a child gets a BINGO, they yell “Boo!”

Just like in regular BINGO, award prizes for 5 spaces in a row, across, down or diagonal.

Variations:

• Award a prize for a GHOST-age Stamp – a piece of Candy Corn in all four spaces in one of the corners
• Award a prize for Bury The Ghost – covering ALL the squares with a Candy Corn

“In 1987, Gary Lowenthal began designing a line of collectible plush teddy Bears, Hares, Tabbies, Pooches, Moose, etc. Thus The Boyds Collection. In 1992, he started to design cold cast resin interpretations of his Plush Line and created The Bearstone Collection.  In 1993, he introduced The Folkstone Collection…a line of whimsical Folk Art Figurines, Snowmen, Santas, Angels, Hares, Moose, etc.  In 1996, G.M. introduced The Dollstone Collection… unique sculptures of Victorian Children with their Dolls and Teddies.”

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To kids, Halloween is all about the Treats!  So, serve them up something Spooky this Halloween!

Terrifying Tortilla Chips

Spray regular Flour Tortillas with a bit of canola oil cooking spray and sprinkle with parmesan cheese or cinnamon and sugar.  Use Halloween Cookie Cutters to cut the tortillas into your favorite Halloween shapes and then bake for a crispy treat!

Spooky Sandwiches

Even Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches are a treat when you use Halloween Cookie Cutters to cut them into witches, bats and ghost shapes!

Wicked Witch Fingers

Have some left over cookie dough and a few almonds?  Shape the into the shape of a Witch’s Finger – make it crooked and include a gnarly knuckle – and press an almond into the tip for the nail.

To make these cookies even more fun, color the dough green!  Or use black or red food coloring to paint the “nail” before baking.

Color it green!

For special snacks at Halloween – color all their food green!  Green Milk, Green Pudding, Green French Toast!  You name it – if it’s green, it must be Halloweeeeeeennn!

Easy Halloween Party Mix

Ingredients

• 1 package (11 ounces) pretzels
• 1 package (10-1/2 ounces) miniature peanut butter filled butter-flavored crackers
• 1 cup dry roasted peanuts
• 1 cup Granulated Sugar
• 1/2 cup butter, cubed
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup
• 2 tablespoons vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 package (10 ounces) M&M’s
• 1 package (18-1/2 ounces) candy corn

Directions:

In a large bowl, combine the pretzels, crackers and peanuts. In a large saucepan, combine the sugar, butter and corn syrup. Bring to a boil over medium heat; boil for 5 minutes. Remove from the heat; stir in vanilla and baking soda (mixture will foam). Pour over pretzel mixture and stir until coated.

Transfer to a greased 15-in. x 10-in. x 1-in. baking pan. Bake at 250° for 45 minutes, stirring every 10-15 minutes. Break apart while warm. Toss with M&M’s and candy corn. Cool completely. Store in airtight containers. Yield: 4 quarts.

The weather is turning cooler in some areas, and already the leaves have begun turning.  Soon, it will be Halloween!  Have you ever wondered how Halloween (also spelled Hallowe’en) came to be celebrated as we know it today?   Also known as All Hallows’ Eve and All Saint’s Eve, the holiday is celebrated on October 31^st worldwide.  It has roots in the Celtic festival of Samhain (meaning “summer’s end”) and the Christian holy day of All Saints.  Today, it is largely a secular celebration, with little regard to the many traditions and rituals of hundreds of years ago.

Activities on Halloween include carving pumpkins (known as Jack-O-Lanterns), dressing up in costume and going door to door trick-or-treating, or attending costume parties.  Games like “bobbing for apples” is also popular, as is visiting “haunted houses”, playing pranks, and even sitting around a bonfire and telling scary stories.

It is thought that the prevalent colors of black and orange are associated with the holiday because of the darkness of night and the colors of fire, autumn leaves, or pumpkins. Elements of the autumn season, such as pumpkins, corn husks, and scarecrows are also popular. Homes are often decorated with these types of symbols around Halloween.  Some towns have annual pumpkin carving contests and house-decorating contests.  Still others hold an annual Halloween parade.

Halloween imagery includes themes of death, evil, the occult, magic, or monsters. Traditional characters include ghosts, witches, vampires, werewolves, bats, skeletons and black cats.  The use of costumes comes from the belief that wearing a costume will ward off evil.  Present day “characters” that can be seen running the streets on the evening of Halloween are any variety of cartoon personalities, superheroes, clowns, animals, politicians (see “cartoon personalities” and “clowns”).  I suspect that this year we’ll be seeing a lot of Vampires, Avatars and Toy Story costumes.     I often think of Halloween as the one day in the year you can dress up and be anything you want, if even just for one day and no one will think you’ve lost your marbles because everyone else is doing it too.

Retailers love Halloween – it has become one of the largest money making holidays ever.  You’ll notice that the Halloween decorations and supplies appear in stores right around (if not before) Labor Day.

Sometimes its hard to tell who is having more fun with Halloween – the kids or the adults.  Whatever you do this Halloween, enjoy yourself, be safe, and most of all, have FUN!!!

Dracula’s Delight

Serve this drink in a nice wine goblet – Dracula wouldn’t be caught dead using a mug!

Ingredients:

• 1 ounce Bourbon
• 1/2 ounce Lime Juice
• 1 teaspoon (hah!) Tequila

Directions:

Pour over ice in a goblet and top off with Tomato Juice.  Stir, sip and enjoy!

Pina Ghouladas

A delightfuly Ghoulish drink!

• Garnish your glass or goblet with Vampire Blood.

To make Vampire Blood, color clear Corn Syrup with red food coloring.  Paste food coloring works best because it won’t add any liquid to the syrup.  But regular food coloring works, too.

Pour the Vampire Blood onto a saucer or shallow container and spin the rim of your glass or goblet in the blood.  When you turn the glass upright again, the blood will ooze down the sides.

Pina Ghoulada Recipe

Ingredients

• 20 ounces pineapple juice, more if needed
• 1 can cream of coconut (15 oz size)
• 1/2 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup orange juice
• 10 ounces good-quality rum (optional)
• Ice

Directions:

Whisk together pineapple juice, cream of coconut, heavy cream, orange juice and rum, if using. Place 2 1/2 cups ice in a blender, and add 1 cup drink mixture. Blend until smooth; add more pineapple juice if mixture is too thick. Repeat with remaining ice and mixture. Carefully pour into prepared glasses; serve.

Frankentini

Ingredients:

2 parts vodka
1 part white creme de cacao
1 splash of creme de menthe
ice

Directions:

Mix ingredients together; shake with ice; pour into chilled goblets

Witches’ Brew

Ingredients:

36 ounces Unsweetened apple juice concent — thaw, undiluted
5 cups Water
4 cups Vodka
1/2 cup Lime juice
1/2 gallon Lime sherbet — softened
8 cups Club soda — chilled

Directions:

Combine apple juice, water, vodka, and lime juice in a large bowl. Cover and chill. Just before serving, spoon sherbet into a large punch bowl; slowly pour apple juice mixture and club soda over sherbet, stirring gently.

Food for thought:  use this adult size brain mold to make realistic looking, yummy edible “brains” with your favorite dessert gelatin!  The mold comes with directions and a recipe for a flesh tone brain, but you can make your brains in any color and flavor you want to suit your scary Halloween theme!

Order Your Brains Here: Brain Jello Mold

Here is a decorating idea that’s really too beautiful to hide under chips and dip!  Leaf It In Vermont has created glassware with real Vermont Maple leaves embedded right into their products.  Choose from platters and serving dishes to salad sets or even wooden serving trays.  Each item contains handpicked maple leaves which have been carefully pressed and preserved before being thoughtfully placed and then sealed in an epoxy-resin, suspending their natural beauty in time, and just like snowflakes, no two maple leaves are alike.  (The Ravenloonatic has actually seen these products – each item is truly unique and very beautiful!)

Not just for serving food; some of the containers can also be used to hold coins, keys or craft items. Custom orders are welcome  and the company offers nationwide shipping.

Visit Leaf It In Vermont to view all their products and order your handcrafted maple leaf glassware today!