A HORRIFYING HALLOWEEN TO REMEMBER

As we near one of the most spook-tacular times of year, we’d like to give you a new party idea – one that that will have everyone in your neighborhood talking for weeks! In earlier newsletters, we’ve covered the Halloween basics – from creative costume ideas to party considerations – now we want to focus on how to create a haunted house.

The best way to entertain an entire neighborhood and give the kids – and adults – an evening they will never forget is to take on what so few others are willing to try. While the idea of creating a haunted house is daunting, it is really a simple matter of asking for lots of help, creating a list of attractions, props and projects, a sketch of your design and then plenty of time to build. And, when the haunted house is closed for the night, you can retire with the adults for a relaxing, private party of your own!

HAUNTED HOUSE BASICS

Budget

Determine how much you can spend up front. Creating a haunted house can be expensive! However, depending on your budget, you can buy some key props and make the rest! Consider what key pieces you’d like to buy – like spotlights, fog machine, dummies, witches, skeletons, graveyard fence and tombstones – and make many of the others.

Make a Diagram

Find a space for your haunted house. Consider the house, basement, yard or garage. Sketch out what you want your haunted house to look like. Determine how many rooms you will have, the entrance and exit. Think about each room – if you have a group of dead people (dummies) eating at a table, what else will be in the room? Food? Lights? Will your haunted house feature a maze, spider webs or monster cage?

Consider Lighting

Next to making your haunted house dark, spooky lighting is the most important. Change light bulbs to black lights. Borrow or buy spot lights to focus on certain attractions. A strobe light may prove very useful! String Halloween themed holiday lights. Consider using glow in the dark paint for scary messages or accents.

Make a Project List

Once you know what you want your house to look like, break down every room/project. Don’t forget to include the basics of your haunted house – black sheets, blankets and trash bags to make the dark! From this, you can determine your shopping list and your To Do list. Be sure you build in plenty of time and remember – building a haunted house takes patience!

Enlist Help

One of the most important keys to success with a haunted house is help. You need lots of help! Turn to friends and family to borrow items and keep your costs low. Ask for help in the building and setting up process. And – possibly the BEST part – have lots of people help with your haunted house. Pose live people in costumes alongside dummies so guests don’t know what’s real. Ask people to run certain attractions or hand out candy or glow sticks.

Safety First!

With every aspect or your planning and implementation, consider safety. Be careful not to string anything in front of hot lights, make sure hot lights aren’t in walking path and keep a fire extinguisher on hand. If someone is frightened – especially a young child – ask your actor to take off their masks and explain that it is pretend.

HAUNTED HOUSE ATTRACTIONS

There are so many creative ideas for how to decorate your haunted house! From a graveyard, guillotine with rolling heads and a dead person’s dinner to a witch’s room complete with boiling cauldron, the options are limitless! Include lots of unexpected scary sounds and sensory experiences to startle visitors. Below are a few ideas to get your creative juices flowing. (Be sure to check the Internet for more ideas!)

Entry Way

String up a giant garbage bag that’s been shredded into strips (think carwash) across the entrance of your haunted house. In the room just past the entrance, hang lots of black thread from the top down so that it’s invisible in the dark but scrapes guests as they walk in. Or you can consider using lots of cob-webbing accented by a black light.

Graveyard

Use freshly turned dirt around a whole with a homemade coffin in it. Use an appliance box for the coffin. Cover with a lid with scattered glued leaves and dirt across the top (leave plenty of air holes!). Ask one of your costumed guests to do the honors of being your dead person who pops up to scare people!

Maze

Use 2 x 4 or PVC pipe to build the frame of your maze. Cover the frame and black sheeting walls. Put spooky props in corners.

Crazy Man Screaming

I found this on www.ehow.com by a community member Something I just love (and love to personally do) is have a live action character dressed up in normal street clothes who is battered, bloodied and tattered come running out of the entrance of the facility, screaming. Every 15 minutes or so should do the trick (depending on whether or not you have a line to get in – don’t let your guests see this character more than once.)

Witches Room

Have one of your actors dressed up as a witch sitting around a boiling cauldron (you can use dry ice), put objects floating in the cauldron such as a rubber glove that’s been frozen with red water.

HALLOWEEN’S GRAND FINALE – YOUR POSH AFTER-PARTY 15% OFF

All good things must come to an end. Once Halloween nears its end (early for most of us!), invite your actors and friends in for a more relaxed, inviting Halloween celebration. Check out Come into my Web Halloween party. 15% off through 10/28/2009. Enter SPOOKY at checkout!

COME INTO MY WEB Party In A Box

Whether you're 8 or 48, Halloween parties are fun! For the spooooooooookiest soiree of the season, this Party Box has everything you need! Eerie invitations, hanging bats, fingernail candles, and a spider web with hanging tarantula are included in the "Come Into My Web" Party Box!

Party Box for 8 Guests ($216); Additional Guests $23 Each

Your Party Box Includes:

• 8 "Come into my Web" invitations
• 8 "Google Eye" or "Skull" ceramic mugs
• 8 Pumpkin baskets with Halloween egg critters
• 8 Witch finger candles
• 8 Spider web plates
• 20 Orange and black napkins
• 1 Spider web votive that glows in the dark
• 1"Bobble Head" Halloween character or Scary Screamer
• Orange and black balloons with ribbon
• 1 Hanging bat
• 1 Hanging tarantula
• 2 Pkgs Halloween confetti and black curling ribbon

Optional Items:

• 48” Spider web ($15.00)
• 14” Glowing fiber optic pumpkin center piece ($17.50)
• 14" Glowing fiber optic Frankenstein center piece ($17.50)

EDIBLE EYEBALLS RECIPE

Ingredients

• Carrots
• Cream Cheese
• Pitted Black Olives

1. Simply slice carrots into 1-inch-thick chunks, top each with a blob of cream cheese and one half of a pitted black olive, and serve.

PUMPKIN CAKE RECIPE

Made from two bundt cakes, this jack-o'-lantern will light up any party. Because of its delicious homemade pumpkin flavor, this cake is sure to be carved up in a hurry. If you're pressed for time, substitute three boxes of spice-cake mix for the ingredients we've listed here. Serves 24.

SPIDER PRETZELS RECIPE

These arachnid treats are easy to make and they look positively lifelike crawling across your child's snack plate.

For each:

• 2 round crackers
• 2 teaspoons smooth peanut butter
• 8 small pretzel sticks
• 2 raisins

With the peanut butter, make a cracker sandwich. Insert eight pretzel "legs" into the filling. With a dab of peanut butter, set two raisin "eyes" on top. Makes 1