Amber's Craft a Week Blog: My Halloween 2016 Party

My favorite photo from the party. It's a very accurate depiction of my family.

This past Sunday I hosted my annual Halloween party. It took a lot of work putting it all together; Brian and I spent most of the day Saturday and right up until the morning on Sunday cleaning, digging out and putting up decorations, finishing the last minute prop additions, and making and decorating the food. If it wasn't for fall break, I wouldn't have had the time for this (and really I didn't; the rest of the semester is going to be a bit more hectic because I took the time out, but I needed a break), but it's something I'd been looking forward to for weeks and it definitely lived up to my expectations. Here's a recap of the party with plenty of food, games, and snack ideas.

Halloween Snacks

Brian and I made our cemetery cupcakes (recipe in this post, although you'll have to scroll a little to find it) and eyeball deviled eggs (recipe in this post, although you'll have to scroll here too) again this year. We had some bananas on the verge of spoiling, so Brian decided to make some banana bread too. My family is all about cheese, but instead of going with just a cheese platter, as per usual, I decided to make these "witch's broomsticks" which are fast and easy to create. I threw in some extra cheese cubes on the side, though, because you can never have too much cheese.

Witch's Broomsticks

Ingredients:
*String cheese sticks (each stick makes three "brooms")
*Pretzel sticks

Supplies:
*Knife

Directions:
*Cut string cheese in thirds lengthwise.
*Cut slits in the cheese pieces, going about halfway up.
*Carefully pull up on the thin sections you've created. These will form the "bristles" of the broom.
*Place a pretzel stick in the other end, being careful not to push it in too deep, or else the broom might break.

The Tablescapes

We had two tables at the party, the snack table and the main table. On the snack table, the deviled egg eyes are on top of the Halloween platter I made a couple of years back. The cupcakes are balanced on this spider web cupcake stand. I included the appetizer picks in their spooky stone holder, although they ended up being more decorative than functional (we were supposed to have some green olives too, but forgot to pick them up when we were out on Saturday). Here's how I made the tablecloth. I ended up going with plain black paper plates and napkins because they were cheaper and there weren't any plates at Target that were must haves. I think they worked out really well.

For the big table, I went with a very similar setup to the one I've done for the past couple of years. The tablecloth I picked up on clearance from Joann ages ago and the bat salt and pepper shakers came from the Target dollar aisle, also years ago. I think the tealights might also have been from Target. Here's how to make the glitter drip glasses. I also swapped out my spiderweb candle from Kohl's for the spooky faced candle Brian and I made this year.

Outdoor Decor

Here's the whole outdoor setup. If you've seen my post from last year, you'll notice there's a new display, which I'm super excited about! But first up, the old stuff. The eyeball path markers I got from Kmart several years back and the jack o'lantern lights on the door Brian surprised me with a couple of years ago for Halloween. He got them from Rite Aid. Those zombie lawn gnomes lurking at the edge of the house Brian's mom gave me for Christmas. She got them from Oriental Trading.

Here's the doorway. In addition to the jack o'lantern lights, you can see my glow in the dark eyeball wreath and my "knock if you dare" door hanger, which used to be available for free online, but I can no longer find a link to it. Also, see that thing hanging off the bottom of the rusted old mailbox? That's our new doorbell, which we picked up from Target. The top part opens up when you push the button to reveal a glowing eyeball that moves as the doorbell says spooky stuff. It's pretty neat.

This is what my cemetery ended up looking like this year. My little cemetery is my favorite Halloween display, so this year I did not let the threat of rain stop me. Farthest to the left you'll see my tombstone with plaque accompanied by my eerie graveyard bouquet. The bouquet was the only part of the display that seemed like it would get ruined by the slightest bit of rain, so I brought it inside as soon as I finished taking pictures. The next stone over is my original insulation foam tombstones accompanied by one of my Styrofoam tombstones, with my Barbie "stone" angel statue propped against them, Since Barbie's wings are cardboard, I'd caution against putting her outside in the rain, although my statue seemed to hold up just fine. The other tombstones came from Target (they were part of a kit along with some of the skeletal remains and fencing), Dollar Tree, and some sort of yard sale/flea market. If you look closely, you can see my haunted hedge eyes peeking out from behind one of the stones. I got the hedge eyes from Target at the end of the season a couple of years ago. The fence that came with the kit you saw in last year's post. The "haunted: keep out" tape I used to string the fence pieces together I got on sale at A.C. Moore last year. I didn't have a chance to use it for my party (not sure if I'd even bought it then), but I did use it for Halloween night, so that wasn't new to this party.

Notice the bat gate posts in the cemetery picture? Those came from Dollar Tree, but they had this ugly, peeling accent paint on them. You can't really tell from the picture above, but the bats had poorly done red eyes and peeling purple wings. I quickly brushed some black acrylic paint over them (spray paint would probably have worked really well for this, but I didn't have any on hand and forgot that I had to paint these until the morning of the party) and they looked so much better.

Here's the new display. I'm hoping to devote an entire blog post to it next year, so I'm not going to say too much about it here, but it's basically a modification of the "beware of dog" idea for your pet werewolf. In the original display, the werewolf is gone, the leash just hangs limply over the sign. The scare factor is in what's not there rather than what is there. However, when my friend Ken showed up dressed as a (were)wolf, I couldn't resist getting some pics of him in our werewolf display. Yes, that's Brian the dark sorcerer in the background. No, I don't know what he's doing.

Indoor Decor

This year I again had to have multiple Halloween "mantles" to display all of my decorations. I threw some cloth over the printer and then added my spooky display items. The setup is similar to the layout I had last year. At the top there's one of my creepy dolls. My spellbook moved up to the top as well. I made the spellbook using my Silhouette CAMEO for Halloween last year (see last year's party post for details). There's my haunted mirror and at the opposite side, one of my Halloween lenticulars which came from Rite Aid a few years back that I reframed. In between the two are some new additions to my Halloween decor. That tiny blue bottle is an antique poison bottle that my dad gave me. I knew I wanted to incorporate it into my Halloween decor somehow and this seemed like a good spot for it. Beside it is my new spooky telephone, which I got from Target. You pick it up and it says creepy things. I adore it.

Here's the other "mantle," a pile of storage boxes covered in my tie dyed sheet with some Dollar Tree gauzy cloth thrown over top. In addition to the lenticulars, the creepy dolls, and the bouquet, which I decided to put up there after I brought it inside so it wouldn't get rained on, you'll see my felt gingerbread zombie. This little critter almost didn't make it into my Halloween display this year. When I was setting up the decorations, I could not find it anywhere and eventually gave up. However, my mom came to my party early and I was showing her my spellbook. I opened it up to show her that it had a space for storage inside and there was my zombie.
Below the "mantle" is a shelf of spookiness. Previously, I had put a lot of these items on one of the counters in the kitchen, but when Brian bought the bread machine, that ended up taking up that bit of counter space that I had used in previous years. We have a "junk" shelf of assorted trinkets and I had cleared it off so I could move it down the hall without spilling everything everywhere. I realized that I could use that shelf for my Halloween display. On the top shelf are my Halloween tree and my potion bottles. I added a couple of vintage glass bottles I got from dad, one to the middle shelf and one to the bottom, because I thought they fit with the aesthetic. On the other shelves you'll see some little Halloween figurines I've accumulated years ago from A.C. Moore and a yard sale, my "beware" sign from ages ago from Target, my old centerpiece candle, my pom pom pals, and a plush bat I got from Target a couple of years ago.

This was the last indoor setup. I needed a spot near an outlet for my haunted grove and the other printer seemed like the ideal location, so I threw some fabric over the printer and set the grove up there. There was a lot of extra space on top of the printer and I'd been needing a place to put my spooky sign, so that's where it ended up. I usually hang up my felt sleepy bat along the wall toward the end of the kitchen, but this year it was going to be so far removed from everything else that I decided to move it in closer.

Games and Activities

We did not have the Yankee swap (scroll to the activities section of this post for details) this year because I didn't have a chance to gather prizes, but if you're looking for an activity for your party, that's always a fun one. What we did instead was we played my jack o'lantern game. We had six people for the first round and that seemed like a good amount; any more and it would have been too many. Dad won and got the first trophy (DIY post to come) of the day for his prowess at the jack o'lantern game. We also had a costume contest and awarded trophies for best individual costume and best couples costume.

I set up a photo booth for my guests. I'll have instructions for how to DIY your own in a future post, but this picture was too awesome to wait to share.