Elegant
Halloween doesn’t have to be scary, and it can easily be made into a holiday with elegant style. Candle holders like  pumpkin lantern centerpieces jazz up orange or black tablecloths. Sprinkle candy corn around for edible decorations to add colorful snacks for hungry visitors. If candy corn won’t fix your craving for Halloween goodness, make cakes in mini pumpkins cake pans. Decorate with orange and green icing, and watch your table come to life.

Kid-Friendly

Create faces on party tableware!

Smiling jack-o-lanterns, happy spiders, laughing vampires- there are many kid-friendly snacks and tableware to keep the atmosphere light. A boo bash party pack can jazz up any boring table at Halloween. For the child with a sweet tooth, bake some sugar cookies in the shapes of pumpkins or candy corns and decorate with icing. For the child who wants something healthy, create an array of black and orange fruits and vegetables like carrots, blackberries, oranges, mangos and raisins. The combination of funny Halloween characters and kid-friendly snacks will create a simple spread that children of all ages will love!

Vampire Red
Orange and black not your thing? Spice up a spread with a simple Halloween vampire theme of red, black and white. Have your main centerpiece be a haunting, tabletop skull candle holder that looks like it was taken from Dracula’s dining room table. Any vampire fan will love sinking his or her teeth into cupcakes wrapped in vampire cupcake wrappers.  Don’t forget to choose some sort of red beverage to go along with the treats. There are lots of vampire goodies out at Halloween time that can serve as secondary table decorations, like plastic fangs and bats.

Bad to the Bone
The chills and frills party pack look is big in Hollywood and can be a real hit for your Halloween spread. Aside from fun, disposable cups, plates and napkins, there are lots of exciting table centerpieces like plastic or glass skulls.  If you’re interested in having your Halloween snacks fit in with the theme of the table, create brains oozing from skulls from nomskulls cupcake molds. It’s up to you how scary you want to get. Skulls can be a super spooky theme to a Halloween table spread or just a fun, colorful way to jazz up a table.

After you set your Halloween table, try these Halloween party recipes and enjoy the fun of pre-party preparations with family and friends.

Celebrity Party
Whether it’s Lady Gaga or Michael Jordan, everyone has a favorite celebrity they would love to be if even just for a day. Help your guest’s dreams come true by having a celebrity-themed Halloween party! Roll out the red carpet for your guests as they arrive, and be sure to take lots of pictures in true paparazzi style. Have elegant hours devours prepared, popular music and be sure to give away Hollywood awards for the best celebrity look-alikes. This theme can be done with adults and/or children and is especially good for the party host who wants to steer clear of anything scary for their Halloween party.

Vampire Party
There’s no doubt that vampires have reached insane levels of popularity over the past couple of years, and Halloween is the perfect time to throw a vampire party- no humans allowed! Make sure your guests grab their white vampire fangs and prepare for a night of fun with fellow vampires. Set the mood with organ music or have your favorite vampire movie playing. Send your guests home with candies covered in Halloween favor wrappers they won’t find anywhere else! Depending on how much you get into the vampire and blood theme, this party is still probably best for adults only.

Halloween Hoedown
Not everyone is into the spook and gore of Halloween, so why not throw a non-threatening Halloween Hoedown? Greet your cowboy-hat and boot-wearing guests at a barn entrance  and direct them to the fun inside. Play your favorite country music and leave plenty of room for line dancing. Guests old and young will get a kick out of glass boot mugs they can take home to remember the party throughout the year. This non-threatening Halloween theme will leave your guests feeling light-hearted instead of spooked out.

Decade Party
Hulahoop back to the 50’s. Flashback to the 80’s. Take your Halloween guests to a decade they haven’t visited in years. The key to this party is your groovy music CD.  Play favorite songs from your chosen decade and watch your guests reminisce about old times. Have friends and family bring pictures of themselves from past decades and put them into a box as they arrive. Display the pictures and see if your guests can pick each other out from the wall of photos. Your peace sign danglers fit any retro party and leave your guests feeling like they’ve gone back in time.

Wild about Halloween
Unleash your inner animal at a safari-themed Halloween party. Guests of all ages can dress as their favorite animal, or make things really interesting by telling people what animal they have to dress up as! Decorate your venue with animal print party balloons and literally make everything – from the invitations to the giraffe print cups – in the animal print of choice. Play a game of animal charades and watch your guests fall over in laughter as they watch each other imitate wild animals.

Let your October imagination run wild with unique, Halloween theme parties!

Halloween Party Decorations-Outdoor and Indoor
Amazing outdoor and indoor Halloween decorations are readily available, even if you are catering to the lighter side of Halloween.

Outdoor
Start by placing a giant 3D lighted Jack O’Lantern on your front porch, or near your front door. Then hang a lighted spider web on your door or on your house. Dress up your steel garage door with the fun stix Halloween magnetic decorations, and stick the happy jack window wall graphic in your front window for added dimension to your outdoor decor. Stay outdoors or move to indoor decorating with personalized Halloween banners. Several suggestions for cute banners are: the personalized Halloween family banner, the candy corn personalized banner, trick or treaters banner, or the pumpkin personalized banner.

Indoor
Hang fun, colorful decorations from the ceiling at different heights. The fall fluffy hanging decorations are a great choice, especially in combination with the gruesome group hanging decorations. Then attach a mixture of decorations on your walls. In your entryway, the happy Halloween wall graphic with your family name on it is a welcoming sign to guests that this is a friendly Halloween celebration. Continue filling the walls with Halloween cheer as you put up the gruesome group glitter cutouts and the ghost felt cutout assortment. In the main party area, the stack o’Jack-O-Lanterns is a crazy and silly addition to the non-scary atmosphere.

Balloons
Halloween balloons are a friendly way to incorporate a light-hearted tone to your party setting. Group a bunch of black and orange polka dot latex balloons with some of these adorable mylar balloon choices: the black cat, the kooky bat, the giant witch hat, the haunted (or not so haunted) house, and the happy ghost. Don’t forget to have a helium tank at the ready to fill all of your balloons!

Halloween Party Activities
Capture the costumed guests by taking lots of photos! Provide exciting Halloween photo props and photo stand ins for the guests to indulge in a variety of poses.
Photo Props: Frankenstein, Scarecrow, or Witch
Photo Stand-Ins: Scarecrow, Mummy, Juggling Skeleton Child, or Pirate Photo Setting

Set up popular Halloween activities like the classic bobbing for apples, the pumpkin toss game, the inflatable pumpkin ball toss game, and the inflatable spider ring toss game.

Three adorable Halloween craft ideas are: assemble the Foamies candy corn bucket, put together the make a scarecrow craft kit, or paint the large paintable pumpkin.

Remember, when you want to please the crowd, you can’t go wrong with a Halloween pinata full of candy and other fun filler items!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

Sweet Treats
Trick or treat? Most people opt for treat over trick and for good reason. One of the best things about Halloween is the treats and your guests will love these sweet treats along with their adorable packaging!
•Halloween Cookie Tins – Send your guests away with a homemade treat in a personalized cookie tin as a keepsake from your Halloween party.
• Halloween Mint Tins – Choose a design and give this minty take home favor with your own wording on the tin.
• Halloween Lollipop Favors – Hand your guests a bouquet of Halloween lollipops and they are sure to treat you with a smile! Choose from a variety of Halloween milk chocolate lollipop favors, boo-tique swirl lollipops, or Halloween swirl lollipops.
• Red and white wax fangs – These amazing wax candy lips come in a box with 24 individual packages to easily include in your Halloween favor pack.

Glow Favors
Your guests will play with these glow party favors long after the Halloween party is over.
• Glow in the Dark Fangs – Make your teeth glow green with these fun party favor fangs!
• Glow Pumpkin Saucers – Play with this adorable pumpkin glow in the dark saucer long after the sun goes down.
• Glow in the Dark Sword – These cool light-up swords come in a variety of colors (yellow, orange, blue, and green) and they are a fantastic Halloween accessory.
• Flash Pop Ring – Bring in the bling with these flashy rings!
• Magic Star Ball – These star glow favors are irresistible and they come with an attachment to turn them into a necklace!

Novelty Items
Candy is not the only coveted party favor that your guests will go crazy for! These novelty items will make them howl with happiness.
• Creature Pop Up Favors – Kids will love playing with these delightful monster pop ups over and over again.
• Bean Bag Bats – Maybe you don’t think bats are cute, but these bean bag bats in assorted colors are adorable.
• Pull And Stretch Bounce Ball – These bouncy balls are unique! Not only do they bounce, but they take on different shapes as you pull and stretch them. They come in bright colors (blue, pink, green, and orange).
• Sponge Bob Sculpted Bubbles – Bubbles are a guest favorite, and the Sponge Bob bubble container is so cute and comical!

Contain Your Favors
Wondering what kind of container to put your Halloween party favors in?
• Halloween Favor Boxes – Choose from 5 terrific Halloween designed boxes to contain your goodies.
• Bat Shaped Favor Bags with Zipper – These happy bat bags feature a zipper closure to keep the favors from spilling out.
• Cauldron – Stir up great small prizes and Halloween candy in this black kettle cauldron.

Fill the Pumpkin Game
Place a pumpkin Halloween candy bucket about 4-6 feet away from the students. In a large plastic Halloween bowl, provide several pieces of party candy, preferably all of the same kind, like Tootsie Rolls or Frooties. Line the students up behind a tape line and give them each a time allotted turn (suggestion: 20-30 seconds) tossing candy, piece by piece into the bucket. After each turn, count how many pieces each student was able to get into the bucket and keep a tally to see which student(s) got the most candy in the bucket. A variation on this game is to break up the classroom into two teams and run the same game, only do the count at the very end to see which team got the most candy in their bucket.

Ghost Busters Game
Cut 30-50 ghosts, about 5-6 inches tall, out of white construction paper. Give the ghosts faces with a black sharpie marker on one side. Turn each ghost to the blank side and assign each ghost a point value (1, 5, 10, 20, etc.) with a pen or highlighter. Assign point values based on age appropriate math numbers. For older kids use larger numbers to make the game more exciting. Hide the ghosts around the room while the students are gone or if they will be supervised, have them step out into the hallway so you can hide the ghosts. Let the students back in the classroom and then instruct them to be ghost busters and find as many ghosts as they can before you yell “boo!” When the game is over, have the students add up the numbers on their ghosts to see who had the most points. Give the winners a thrill with cool glow in the dark fangs as their prize.

Halloween Toss Games
Who can resist a game of bean bag toss, especially with a Halloween themed board? Your students will love lining up for the monster lab toss game or the Halloween bean bag toss game. Both of these games feature a colorful Halloween theme, and include point values on the board. Tally up the points each student gets after their turn is completed.

Bat Pinata Activity
A crowd pleasing Halloween party activity is the classic and beloved piñata. Let the students take a whack with a piñata buster at this crazy looking bat piñata. You can never go wrong the piñata filler, packed with yummy treats and fun toys. If you are looking for an alternative idea, fill the piñata with fun erasers, stickers, or coupons/bucks for special classroom perks.