9 Spooktacular Halloween Party Ideas

Have you made Halloween plans yet?

If not, we have some ideas just for you! This year, Halloween falls on a Saturday evening, giving you even more leeway to let your hair down and celebrate in style. Whether you want to throw a party, have your friends round to watch a scary horror film or entertain the children with spooky themed activities, you're going to need a few things to make sure your celebrations are the best they can be!

No matter what you get up to, here are nine tips to transform your evening into the perfect Halloween party:

1) Candles

No Halloween gathering is complete without decorations around the house and outdoors. You can really go to town with Halloween decorations to create a spooky atmosphere and nothing is better for achieving this look than candles. Turn all the lights out and dot tealights and candles around the room in tea light holders and candle sticks to ensure they are safe. This will create a cosy yet spooky setting for your celebrations.

2) Pumpkins

Pumpkins are the classic Halloween decoration. In the run up to Halloween, spend the evenings carving your pumpkins into a variety of designs. Amongst the classic Jack O'Lantern face, you can carve scenes, cats, owls, names, anything at all. Just let your imagination run wild. Pop a tea light inside or a fake candle if it's going outdoors, and you've created a traditional and spooky thing to add to your décor. Pumpkins are a great way to invite children to your door who are trick or treating as a lot of parents don't like to bother people who don't celebrate Halloween, have very young children themselves or are elderly. Pumpkins outside your home will give them the indication that their children are welcome to knock for sweets and treats.

3) Halloween Baking

No party or night in is complete without snacks! Halloween gives you the perfect excuse to get in the kitchen and whip up some sweet treats that can be iced in orange, green and black and decorated with spooky and fun designs. Cookies and biscuits are great if you are having a party as they're easy for people to grab and eat whilst standing and chatting. You can create themed biscuits using these shaped cutters. An array of spooky shapes including pumpkins, bats, cats and owls will look great on your party spread.

4) Halloween Food

When it comes to a Halloween buffet, be as creative as possible! Hot dogs are a classic Halloween meal, so carve a square on the end of each one to make them look like fingers and cover them in tomato sauce to represent blood. You could also take the party outside and get some use out of the BBQ now that summer is over. If you're not a fan of hot dogs from a tin, make sausages easily with minimal mess on the BBQ with this Gardeco Teflon Coated Steel Cooking Iron. Alternatively, for the perfect party food, cook up some pizzas with different toppings using this Gardeco Pizza Stone.

5) Marshmallows

Marshmallows are great to toast after you've finished cooking your savoury food, but give them the ultimate Halloween make over by turning them into mini ghosts. Either push chocolate chips inside or add icing to make two eyes, then pop the marshmallows on wooden sticks to make ghostly treats that the kids will love.

6) Spooky Cocktails

Cocktails are perfect for a gathering with your friends and making a Halloween themed punch is a great party pleaser. You can be creative and develop your own concoctions, or play it safe by following ingredients for classics such as margaritas, cosmopolitans and strawberry daiquiri. For a Halloween themed drink, make Bloody Mary's, Vampire Punch or Devil's Punch and play with different coloured liquors to invent new spooky shades.

A Dracula's Blood cocktail is one of the easiest and quickest drink recipes that we can find:

• Vodka
• Peach Schnapps
• Cranberry Juice
• Ice

Just shake the ingredients together in a cocktail shaker and pour into a tall glass.

If you are having people over, they will more than likely bring their own bottles, so dot some drinks coolers around the room for people to have easy access to drinks and stop them coming in and out of the kitchen for a top up when you're busy cooking up some treats for everyone. This Bar Craft Acrylic Extra Large Oval Drinks Pail / Cooler is suitable for chilling wine, water, beer and soft drinks. Make ice overnight using tap water and Metaltex Ice Cube Bags to cut down on costs and have a constant top up.

Another great idea is to fill a clean latex glove with water and stick it in the freezer. When it has frozen, peel the glove away and put the hand shaped ice in your punch bowl as a creepy extra decoration that will also keep the drinks cold.

Straws and cocktail umbrellas add a party touch to your spread and can double as decorations on the table to add colour in pretty pots. Both can also be used in Halloween themed arts and crafts with the children to make spooky spiders and pictures.

7) Minimise the clean up

Use disposable plates, trays and napkins for your spread so that when the party is over, you can just recycle the paper and dispose of the leftovers, or put everything in the fridge for snacks tomorrow.

In the run up to Halloween, you can also save some of your recycling for Halloween decoration making. Milk cartons and plastic bottles can be made into ghosts and hung around the room or you can create door signs, spiders and cats faces using paper plates and craft supplies like pipe cleaners and ribbon. Halloween is the perfect excuse to get the kids to become as creative as possible with the house decorations as at Halloween, pretty much anything goes!

8) Keep A Balance

It's really easy to go crazy with the sweets and treats at Halloween, so make sure you're getting plenty of healthy food too. Pumpkins aren't just a great Halloween decoration idea. Carving them means you have a lot of pumpkin to use in recipes like soups. You can use hollowed out pumpkins to hold fruit and vegetable sticks and use mini pumpkins to display dips on the table.

9) Merge Your Parties

Yes it may be Halloween first, but Bonfire Night is only a few days later! Have a joint Halloween/Firework party on the weekend in-between the two dates and put on a display for your friends and family. Here are a few safety tips for letting off fireworks in your garden:

1 - Store your fireworks correctly in a cool, dry place, out of reach of children.

2 - Make sure pets are indoors and close the curtains so they do not get too distressed.

3 - Make sure you have enough room for your family and guests to keep a safe distance away from where the fireworks are being launched from.

4 - Keep a bucket of water handy for emergencies and sparklers.

5 – Don't wear any loose clothing or long items such as scarves. If you or anyone else does catch alight remember the rules – STOP. DROP. ROLL.

6 – Only one person should set the fireworks off at a time. Light the tip at arms length and use a safety firework lighter or fuse wick.

7 – If one doesn't go off, don't go back to it. It could still be live. Wait until the end of the evening, douse the dud in water and bury the firework, or keep it soaking in a bucket of water, then ask your Fire Brigade for advice.

8 – Be sensible. Don't throw fireworks around or let children near them, they are extremely dangerous.

9 – Learn basic first aid for burns – the fire brigade will be extremely busy so action may need to be taken by you:

• Keep calm.
• Run cold water over the burn for at least 10 minutes immediately.
• Remove any tight clothing, belts or jewellery – burnt skin can swell.
• Cover the burnt area with a clean, smooth cloth or cling film.
• Go straight to the hospital after this process. If the burn is very serious, call 999 for an ambulance, but remember how strained the emergency services will be. If you have a way of taking them there yourself, try to do that.
• Don't give a burned person anything to eat or drink after the accident - they may need an anaesthetic.

Halloween is the perfect excuse to have fun with your family and friends, so go wild with your decorations, make some delicious food and create a unique fancy dress outfit that everyone will admire.

Do you have any Halloween tips to share? What makes a perfect party in your house?

Let us know in the comments below!