Halloween Party Ideas

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
Nana is throwing a Halloween party. This is because easy child plans to trick or treat at the college. (a mad house) Nichole plans to trick or treat in her own neighborhood up in the dayton area, the drive is too long to bother trying to come down here. And no one is volunteering to tote katie and family around for trick or treat after last year's fiasco. (they have a separate trick or treat at the apartment complex she can do)

Susie gave me one idea with the jello brain mold. I want to do that grave yard cake thing I always see in magazines and never before had a reason to actually make it. I found some cute candy that is out of the ordinary and has that "spooky" touch at dollar tree.......you know various eye balls ect.

I figured on the old fashion bobbing for apples........with a prize for the child who could actually manage to get one. Depends on how cold it is.

I could use some other fun but not "work them up into a frenzy" games they could win "prizes" for. Ages 11 - 2 yrs.

I plan to hunt down a recording of various spooky sounds and the monster mash song.

Ideas are very welcome. I don't want the kids so hyped up husband will stroke, but I do want them to have some real fun together with the holiday. :pumpkin:
 
H

HaoZi

Guest
http://www.halloween-website.com/party-guides.htm

Thinking on the fall carnivals when I went to school, we had a marble game, a fishing game, things like that. You could get some cheap ducks and do the numbers on the bottom thing like you see on midways then let them keep the ducks, too. Grab some cups and ping pong balls or even some dried beans for a toss in the cup game.
 

1905

Well-Known Member
Martha Stewart has loads of cool halloween ideas, google it...snacks (breadstick shaped fingers, a medical type glove filled with popcorn with a candy corn as the nail...etc), crafts, decorations......stuff you can easily make. Don't forget the kids will be having parties at school, they'll love the holiday. I think there's a "ghost story" where they feel the body parts.....(grapes are eyeballs) as you read the story, just pass everything around. I don't remember the story, but google that too or make one up. The kids will love this party!
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
make gingerbread people, and let the kids put edible "costumes" on them (before eating them of course - the rule being that they can't eat it until you get a picture!)
 

KTMom91

Well-Known Member
For games, there's dropping clothespins into a milk bottle, bean bag toss, egg and spoon races, scavenger hunt in the yard...

For food, I've had great success with decorating either cookies or cupcakes with gummy worms, using powdered sugar frosting tinted a disgusting shade of brown.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
This and Christmas are the best for me! I LOVE ideas and plans for Halloween parties. Much as I don't like Martha Stewart, she has an amazing recipe for witches fingers. A shortbread type cookie you shape into fingers and put either an almond on the end for a nail or some icing. They are easy and yummy and not too sweet. I will find it for you.

One year I baked a cake in a two metal bowls, one larger than the other. I got a box of twinkies at the dollar store and bought black icing from the bakery at Thriftway (to make truly black icing with food coloring takes a LOT of food color, so it is the one icing I try to buy - and you get better icing from the bakery at the grocery than from the baking aisle, in my opinion). The cake was a basic yellow cake. Once the cakes were cool I sliced the tops so they were even and turned them out onto a big foil covered board. I cut off the top 1/3 or 1/4 of the biggest round cake and made a hollow area. I filled that with green jello made with about 1/2 cup less water than the recipe called for. The jello got all stirred up after it set fully and then went into the cake. I put the top back on, arranged the twinkies to be the spider's legs, covered it with black icing and used candy and icing to make a face. It was a HUGE HUGE hit with the kids. And it was EASY.

You could also do a pirate treasure cake. Just bake a cake in a jelly roll pan and cut and stack it so that you have the bottom, 2 short sides and 2 long sides. Hold it together with icing and toothpicks or skewers. Fill the center area with wrapped candies and then use iced graham crackers as a lid. Have the lid propped up with toothpicks. Brown icing on the outside looks great. You can also use this to make a pyramid cake if an event lends itself that way - just make gradually smaller rectangles out of the jelly roll cake, stack them, cut out a center to put candy in, and have a layer of cake to put on top. I did squares like Mayan pyramids rather than the smooth sided pyramids that you would see in Egypt.

If you are doing the graveyard, use white icing on nutter butters to make ghosts (or almond bark/white chocolate).

You can have activities for the kids, maybe a treasure hunt in the yard rather than trick or treat - give them glow sticks to use while hunting. They are usually pretty cheap at party places.

If you go to familyfun.com you will find TONS of cool ideas. You can decorate the house by cutting paper bats out of black paper, pumpkins out of orange paper, etc....

Have the kids paint their pumpkins with water soluble paints (like those in the little bottles at the store) and then after Halloween have them wash off the paint, help you pull the guts out, then cook the pumpkin and make bread or pie out of it. Gives you several activities instead of just carving pumpkins. Also lets them see how to stretch one item for different types of fun!

If you get a pumpkin that goes bad, toss it out into the yard in an area where you are not likely to mind something growing. we have two areas and if we have tomatoes, cucumbers, pumpkins, watermelon, whatever that goes bad because we didn't eat it fast enough, we toss it there. we have gotten LOTS of veggies growing with no effort this way. Three years in a row we had pumpkins for each of us, my parents, my niece and several friends - and we just made sure they had water during the hot months after something sprouted. It is fun because you never know what to expect, lol.

Sorry, off topic there.

One activity that may seem very strange but my children LOVED when little and choose to do each year now, and many of their friends now do also, is to graph the candy they get. They take all the candy they get trick or treating and sort it into categories. Then they made different types of graphs of how much of each they have. I know, sounds strange, but it gets a lot of math skills into their fun and even kids who HATE math will not mind because you won't tell them it is math!

Also, if you get a lot of the fun size milky way, snickers or 3 musketeer candy bars, or see a good deal the day after Halloween, put them up until Thanksgiving. Then you can use graham crackers, some chocolate icing, fudge stripe cookies and sprinkles to make turkeys for them to share with their class at school. My kids could each assemble these by 2nd grade with little help, so it doesn't take much coordination to do them.

Try getting a bag or two of nerds, esp grape ones, and emptying them all into a little cake pan. Add unwrapped tootsie rolls and a slotted spoon. Yup, gross, looks like kitty litter - but kids LOVE it.

Get clear gloves, the thin kind used for food service instead of the stretchy latex kind used in hospitals and fill them with popcorn. Takes a bit of time to get the popcorn into the fingers, but it is worth it. You can put a piece of candy corn or jelly bean into each finger first as a fingernail. This gives a not sweet treat.

for class parties, consider getting the mini bags of microwave popcorn to give out instead of candy. Kids here love it more than candy because they get candy from everyone. Some of the pretzel companies also make halloween bags to pass out.

Serve worms or octopus for dinner. Worms are made by slicing hot dogs lengthwise into strips and then heating for a few minutes in boiling water. they get all curly. then put them on a bun with "blood" aka ketchup. For an octopus, cut the hotdog lengthwise up to about an inch or so from one end, Cut it so that you have eight legs (or six if your kids are not so Aspie that they would argue with you for a week because there were not eight legs, lol) and then heat the hot dogs a couple at a time in boiling water until the tentacles curl up. use ketchup and mustard to put faces on them.

Make eyeballs out of icing and marshmallows. You can dip the marshmallows into melted white chocolate and put an m&m onto the center of the end. Then use a toothpick dipped in food coloring to make the eyes look bloodshot. these can be done with-o a popsicle stick or lollipop stick stuck into one end or can be done with the stick. If you have them on a stick, put a bunch of candy corn or whatever into a cup and then arrange a bouquet of eyeballs in them.

Put a bunch of different foods into bags and have the kids close their eyes and try to figure out what they are. Cold cooked spaghetti would be worms or snakes, peeled grapes or hardboiled eggs would be eyes, etc....

If you get some flower pots, the clay ones or plastic ones shaped like them, you can paint faces on them to be jack o lanterns and use them as giveaways/party favors. Or you can use the craft paints and turn them into candy corn.

If Nichole was still preggo she could have gotten a white shirt and had you draw a circle around her belly and paint a pumpkin on it. I did that while preggo with thank you.

Use this time for you, easy child and nichole to scour thrift stores for those little kid costumes that are made of polar fleece and are dragons, ladybugs, etc... NOT the walmart quality costumes, ones made of either sweatshirt or fleece material that are one piece. Buy all you can find that would fit the kids now or the little ones in the next year or two. they make AMAZING pajamas and dress up clothes and will be on sale right after Halloween or in thrift stores as they put out the costumes. the kids CAN wear them as costumes, of course, but they also make super warm jammies for those cold winter nights. I know Old Navy used to make them each year, as did Land's End and Talbot's kids.

Depending on how much time you have with the kids, how able they are, and what craft supplies you have, you can find some really cute activities to make small craft items and then take the kids to a nursing home, place that serves free meals to seniors, or wherever the local meals on wheels are cooked and send the crafts to the people there. It is an awesome way to teach the kids about helping others. I doubt seriously that Katie's boys could participate much, but Kayla likely would be able to and easy child's kids and Aubrey could. It doesn't have to be much, just something cute. I remember doing this as a kid through school and in the summer when we visited my gparents we would make things to take when they (gparents) delivered meals on wheels - they took us to deliver too. Not only do the kids learn to give back, they learn that old people are not scary and are actual people. So few kids now ever spend any real time iwth seniors , so this is a good way to broaden their lives. Plus it is fun.

Look for some Halloween music. We somewhere have a cd of Disney halloween songs and it was great to set the mood with-o scaring the little ones. I am sure you could find it somewhere, maybe the library?

You can use halloween cookie cutters to cut out jello jigglers - fast and easy and kids love it. Or to bake brownies in a bigger than usual pan and cut them itno shapes for a fast treat.

If you have halloween jello molds or candy molds, fill them with plaster of paris and let the kids color the shapes with markers or paint. Or just use some water based paint as part of the water to mix the plaster and then they will be colored.

If you have a big container of broken crayons, peel the red and orange and yellow ones and then carefully melt them on the stove or in the oven and pour them into lined muffin tins or any round container that won't melt. Take a dark colored crayon and cut it into small bits to make the eyes and mouth and you have a pumpkin crayon. Use a pan you won't want to use again or a metal can set inside a pan of water. I ahve seen directions to melt them in the microwave, but it made a giant mess and burned the crayons the time I tried it - and that is a stink that is nasty. Peeling the crayons would be a good sitting task for husband - keep him busy and involved.

Since you have been making bread with easy child, make a couple of batches of pizza dough (can use regular bread dough for this if you want) and shape the dough into round shapes, or witches hats or whatever. Prebake them for about ten minutes or so and put them aside. The day of the party you can make them into jack o lantern pizzas using cheese and toppings and sauce for a not-sweet treat for the kids. You could let the kids decorate them or just tell you what they wanted on theirs. You could do a big one for everyone, or smaller ones so the kids can have their own.

You can use cooked biscuits and put a layer of ham or salami or pepperoni on the top. Take a piece of american cheese or other fairly thin sliced cheese and cut it to a little bigger than the size of the biscuit. then use a sharp knife to cut out eyes and a mouth (some cookie cutters will cut out the mouth and eyes of the cookie to make a pumpkin face. I have a couple, but have also just used a knife) and then put the cheese on top of the biscuit. Melt the cheese a little bit in the oven or microwave so that it will stick to the biscuit and hold the meat on.

If you have tootsie roll pops or other lollipops, put a white kleenex or a square of white cloth over them and fasten it with a piece of yarn. Use a marker to put a ghost face on it.

Have a tree and want to put ghosts on it outside? If you have some white cloth, or else white tissue paper, ball up some newspaper or blow up a balloon that isn't too bright a color and then put the tissue or cloth over it and draw a face on with a sharpie or marker. I find this to be an AWESOME use of husband, Wiz, thank you and my dad's old tshirts that need to be replaced. They are ALL bad about digging them out of the trash even if they are dingy, stained or even have holes! Cutting them up for this stops that. Use string to hang them from branches.

Like those big bags for leaves taht look like pumpkins? Use a black garbage bag and pieces of orange felt, fabric or paper. Fill up the bag, tie it shut, use hot glue or fabri-tac to put the face pieces on. You just cut out the eye shape, mouth shape, whatever. In the dark the orange bags are not real noticeable and these won't be either, but in the daytime they make cute reverse pumpkins. And they don't cost more money because you problem already have the bags.

Use clean empty water bottles to make zombies, frankenstein, tall skinny pumpkins. Make sure they are clean and dry, then drip in some craft paint. roll the bottle around and shake it so taht teh paint covers all the sides. Turn them upside down into a container to let the excess drip out. then either paint faces ont he outside or glue on paper or fabric or felt to make the faces. If you REALLY want to make pumpkins that look like pumpkins, get the aquapod bottles taht are short and round.

I know your husband likely is not terribly into crafts, but he can do a LOT to help with the prep on these things - even while he watches tv if he wants. It will keep at least his hands moving and give him soemthing productive to do. Plus he can then show the grands what all HE did to make the party special. i NEVER thought my dad would help with that kind of thing, but he did when it was for the grands - and he reallly enjoyed it after the first time when the grands were all so thrilled with what he had done AND with the idea that gpa did it. They expected gma and I to do these things, but having gpa involved was extra special.

For an activity, print or draw pics of various Halloween themed things onto cardstock. make sure there are two of each picture, then mix them up and play a memory game iwth them. Most of the kids should be able to do that.

If you have plain shirts or sweatshirts in the kids' sizes, get some of the craft paint I keep mentioning (about a buck or a buck fifty in the craft stores or walmart) and mix it wtih textile medium - equal amounts of paint and textile medium - and guide the kids through painting a shirt. You could use dark shirts and neon paint or glow in the dark paint and have them just do eyes and a mouth, or use lighter shirts and more colors and stencils. Or have the outline of whatever painted on and let them fill in the details, or use handprints for various things. You CAN just use the paints, but the textile medium makes a HUGE difference in how long it lasts.

Get a bunch of beads and some threat and let the kids make necklaces. Oriental trading has a ton of this type of stuff or you can find it at craft stores or wherever. If you already have beads, maybe just pick up some special halloween ones and they each get X amt of them.

or have them make their own beads for a necklace. Have strips of magazines cut so that at one end it is about 1 to 1 1/2 inches wide and it comes to a point at the other end of the paper. the longer the paper the thicker the bead. Using a toothpick to roll the paper around, have them roll it as tight as tehy can (may need to help the little ones), then cover the outside with white glue - regular elmer's white glue NOT school glue because the school glue will NOT hold - One the bead won't unroll, they can start another one. Right after the glue goes over the outside ahve them take out the toothpick because that is where the thread will go to string them.

Instead of bobbing for apples, which will spread all sorts of germs between them - and if anyone is coming down with something but doesn't have it yet it could spread a lot to the baby or even husband if he eats any of the apples that are left over, try a clothespin game. get a bottle from either a 3 liter of soda or a gallon of juice that has a wide enough opening for a clothespin to go through. Get wooden clothespins, with or without the spring hinge. Paint a piece of cardboard to look like a hungry ghost, pumpkin, frankenstein, whatever and fasten it around the top of the container so the opening of the bottle is the mouth of the ghost. You could even use a paper plate and just have it stuck around the top of the bottle. Then each kid gets a few clothespins and they have to try to drop it into the bottle with-o bending over - or if tehy are older/coordinated have them stand on a stepstool or short ladder so they are farther away. You can give prizes for getting the pins in, or to whomever gets the most or whatever. If it is a competition between the kids, write their names on the pins with a sharpie so that they can be dumped out and counted if their is a dispute among the kids. You could even have them hold the clothespins in their teeth to drop them, sort of in the spirit of bobbing for apples.

You could rig a beanbag game with beanbags made of halloween fabric and a board or piece of sturdy cardboard to throw the beanbags through. Or make a board with a pumpkin face and have them throw black beanbags at the board. Velcro in the areas of the mouth, eyes, etc... would make beanbags made out of felt stick and the person who got the most features gets a prize.

Have a mummy contest. Divide the kids into groups, with an adult to help each group, and each group gets a roll of toilet paper or two and maybe a set of markers. they have to wrap up one of the team with the toilet paper and make them into a mummy. Best/fastest/most creative/whatever wins a prize. Toilet paper is handy for this because once it is done it gets ripped off. If you put it into a separate bag, it can be kept on hand to help mop up any spills during the party before it is pitched.

Another COOL treat to make with the kids. get some chow mein noodles, those crunchy ones, and some peanut butter or butterscotch or white or choc chips - or a combo of chips. Melt the chips and pour them over the noodles - the noodles will wiggle like worms - no joke. You can have raisins in with the noodles, or anything else you thing would be fun. The kids can help mix the noodles and chips, then you spread it out on a couple of cookie sheets to harden, then break into clumps. Tastes great, still looks like worms when set, but watching it happen is the really fun part. I did this in Jessie's second grade class for the Halloween party. The kids loved it but it became a super special thing when one of the moms helping with the party threw up after she saw the noodles wiggling. The kids said that made me the best party mom ever - apparently making a mom puke at the site of candy makes you the hero of second graders! That mom NEVER forgot and was a bit hard to work with the next two years, lol! But I think that was because her son never let her forget it and had a crush on Jessie.

As for drinks, if you can't get dry ice to put into punch, go with something that won't spill. One cute way to portion treats is to get some of those clear plastic cups for parties - about 8 oz or so - and use paint to draw spider webs or simple skeletons on the cups. A coat of clear nail polish (or some sealer from the craft paint area if you don't have clear nail polish on hand) will keep the design from rubbing off and that lets you do them ahead of time and put them back into the bag until they are needed.

The girls might like having halloween designs painted on their nails. Or just alternating black and orange nail polish. Walgreens has a line of polish for about 2 bucks that comes with a very fine brush for nail art. It would be perfect for spider webs or faces. Or you can just use a fine paint brush and clean it with nail polish remover.

Probably enough for now. I just LOVE halloween and kid parties!!!! Can you tell? lol!!!
 

susiestar

Roll With It
For super easy brown frosting or dirt on a decorated cookie, ice with whatever regular icing and then dust with cocoa powder, ghirardeli ground sweet chocolate and cocoa or hot cocoa mix. Makes great roads through cemeteries. (Or tracks for car racing themed cakes). Just put the powder on wihle the icing is wet or brush the icing with water and then dust it on.

To ice a large area or make it look smooth, heat the icing in the microwave for a few seconds until it is pourable. you do NOT need special "pourable' icing, use the cheapest icing you can find or your favorite. You don't want it like water, but you want it to be easily stirrable and pourable.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
Lisa, remember that while pumpkins are normally orange, nothing says you cannot do a bright green or yellow or purple jack o lantern!

If you watch the thrift stores and find a formal dress or wedding dress for almost nothing, you can make an amazing scarecrow/zombie. I did this for husband's office one year, using some pvc pipe to make it stand up. Stuffed the sleeves with newspaper wrapped in walmart bags (to give them the look of white skin, attached gloves stuffed with kleenex, and made a sort of neck with the newspaper and walmart bags. Then I took a very old soccer ball and covered it with an old white tshirt. I used fabri-tac glue to attach different lengths of different colors of yarn, painted a face on it, and sent it to work with husband. The dress was the most expensive part and it was about three bucks on sale at a thrift store here - was on the mark down mark down rack.

They would not let husband bring it home - and it was a hit for quite a few years!

If you don't know what fabri-tac glue is, it is basically hot glue in a bottle. Takes a little longer than hot glue to set, but is more flexible so it works a bit better if parts might move or get really cold or hot. Watch the Michaels ads and website to find one of their 40% off coupons and get a bottle. It is awesome! And much safer to use iwth kids around.

If you or the kids have shirts that would be fun to decorate but you also want to wear after the holiday, you can get a craft glue that will wash out totally from most fabrics. That way you can do both.

An EASY door/window/ tree decoration is to cut BIG shapes for the face of a pumpkin or frankenstein or whatever from felt or fun foam. Either put a dark colored tablecloth or piece of fabric over the door and pino r glue the features on. When you are done, take the shapes down and then put them back into the craft box to use for projects that don't need an entire sheet of foam or whatever.

Consider putting shirts over the back of the chairs at your table. Then stuff the sleeves with newspaper and attach a balloon or paper plate head. the hands can come up around the person - either by showing them or by having someone behind them use the sleeves to reach out and grab the person in the chair.

Along the lines of the outside pumpikin garbage bags, you can also use black bags to shape a big spider in the yard. Just don't fill the head and legs as full. WHen you take the decoration down you can fill the rest of the bag so it doesn't go to waste.
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
Lisa,

easy child gave me your address - look for a bubble mailer in the next couple of weeks from me. I'm sending you a CD of Halloween sounds/music. husband adores Halloween.
 

Star*

call 911........call 911
I have a shed FULL of halloween decorations - It's our holiday........I also have the original DIsney LP 12" spooky music and it's the best. I have a CD or two of spooky music if you want copies let me know but I see Step beat me to it.

Susie Star just advertised that Jello Brain mold and it's FREAKIN awesome

Floating Eyeballs - (frozen and peeled grapes) are the best in a punch bowl.

With little kids? I would NOT knock myself out spending hours making things to eat - they just want to eat and look at gross things.

If you want cheap CHEAP gag gifts? There is an online company called Oriental Trading company that is great for making gift bags.

We always did a graveyard, and special effects - got written up a couple of years in the local paper.........and one year we were so spooky - only got three kids. Imagine that. I can tell you how to use lighting to create a shadow web on the side of your house to give the illusion of a gigantic spider web with a flood light and a dollar store web with a rubber spider - IT LOOKS AWESOME......add a sheet of colored plastic of red or purple ? Freaky.......

Smores go over great at these things if you can have outdoor fun and a camp fire. And a fire attendant - and this is a better plaec for bob for apples - also tell parents to bring a T shirt and towel.....AHEAD of time.

Apple cider.......

Just got a copy of my coupon magazine and they did spray paint pumpkins BLACK with leaving the design ORANGE - it's cool looking.........and lasts longer.

QUilt batting sold at JOannes - works the SAME as spider webs and is CHEAPER......test it first.........I've heard mixed reviews on the stretchability.

We have a collection of about 400 skulls, ---------bats, YOU CAN..........(and this is so cool) get black paper........and then cut out white eyes (spooky scary) and do a few windows and leave holes for the light to shine through from the inside lights of your house.

Cheese cloth ghosts .........easy peasy to make ----leave soak in sugar water -------then shape ------let dry to tacky then shape again.........use balloons or basketballs for head and remove.......make about a month ahead of time.......they take a long time to dry unless you have nice sunny days.

Stockings striped with witches shoes - (salvation Army or Good will for supplies) STUFF UNDER FOUNDATION of house) Stuff newspaper in stockings.......and then stuff into shoes to make it look like the witch is under the house (no offense to any witch in striped stockings and wearing Salvation ARmy boots)

You can ice Vienna finger cookies with green frosting and then paint the tips with black finger nails -------call them Frankenstiens monsters fingers. add red gel with stitches for effects.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
I wouldn't use sugar water on the cheesecloth ghosts. It can be a major bug attractant and if you get rain then it is sticky to clean up. either use the old fashioned laundry starch or corn starch and water to stiffen them. If you want to store them to use another year, mix elmers white glue - again NOT school glue because it is totally useless for anything esp crafts- and water in equal amounts or go a little heavy on the water. It will dry and you can keep them for years where if you use sugar or starch the bugs and mice will adore them. You COULD buy commercial stuff to stiffen them up in the craft glue section of the craft store, but it is an added cost that you can avoid.

As for the stuffing from the fabric store? I haven't had great luck with it, but that could just be me.
 

Star*

call 911........call 911
Hadn't thought about the sugar water and bugs.....but then again it IS Halloween.....(not funny huh?) You could......Oh never mind......Was going to say send them to M.

Maybe it's not batting I'm thinking of.......But we always got the real spider webs......actually? If you saw DF's den/mancave /getter? NO need to buy ANY packaged webbing. Yes it's that creepy.

Currently I have two Argiope who have made the largest webs outside of our house and as they are my favorite they are so welcome. DF still has not caught and released Aragog from the man cave but I would venture a guess that as it's as big as the palm of his hand they WILL have an encounter ---some day. I would guess it's a fishing spider or a post-radiation ground hunting critter. I know DF has large hands and even the cat won't mess with him.
 

Hound dog

Nana's are Beautiful
Ohhhhhh! Now I'm getting all super excited!

When the kids were small we used to really go all out for halloween. I haven't done it in years and years. It's almost as fun as xmas.

I went crazy over halloween when the kids were small because I never got to enjoy it myself as a kid.......so I was enjoying it as an adult. lol

Step will do the pm thing. I don't download music off line (wouldn't have a clue how) and I can't find our spooky sounds and halloween music. (probably was lost over the years)

Much of the foods will be for special effects. I have a feeling the kids will be too excited to do much actual eating. Jello is cheap as are Vienna sausages via aldi's.

Just wish I knew someone in the area on a farm that had horses and a hay wagon who could take the kids on a hay ride...........

BUT I do have a friend who is having a haunted forest on her farm, entrance fee is to bring a covered dish. :D
 

skeeter

New Member
This is too scary for your g-kids ages.

But one year I decorated the house in the following way. The ex (not the ex at the time) had found a gravestone while running in the woods. We called all the local cemeteries and couldn't find who it belonged to, so just kept it. We put it in the front yard. We also had a pair of "Resusy Annie" hands (ex used to be a fire fighter) and had them coming out of the ground with dirt around them. I put candles all around. Had leaves piled around (far enough that they wouldn't catch on fire from the candles!). Spooky music playing on a boom box buried in the leaves.
I had this floor length, hooded bathrobe. I painted my face to look like a skull and had black gloves on my hands. I sat in a black covered chair. I also had a ceramic skull with the candy in it for passing out.

The candles made the hands look like they were moving. I sat completely still until a kid came up to me, then moved to hand them candy.

I had way too many kids that wouldn't come NEAR me. Finally had to have the ex come out and help give candy to the kids that were freaked out.
 

Star*

call 911........call 911
Aragog is a walker..........havent found a web.......and he just struts. Everyone here in SC calls EVERYTHING (omg it's unnerving) a recluse. Ahhhhhh it's a black and yellow Argiope!!! SMASH IT - it's a RECLUSE - No dum dum it's a web writer -------harmless garden spider....moron. Ahhhhhh look at it....it's a black and white spider the size of my hand SMASH IT ----it's a recluse....."no moron, it's a Fishing spider...." .......AHHHHH it's a housekeeping spider KILLIT.......THWACK....." No ridiculous boy-------that was a ......oh whats the use? Or Everything is a WOLF spider...and I mean EVERYTHING. For EVERY single person I have met here? It's either one of three spiders........WOLF, RECLUSE or BLACK WIDOW.

IT IS TABU.........BAD JUJU ......TABU.....I WILL PLANT MY FOOT and THWACK YOU........if you kill a spider at the Dragon A ranch.......for killing a spider.......so we have catch and release jars all over the place but ONLY.......and I mean ONLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY if it is coming to get you. OTHERWISE? LEAVE IT ALONE.

ARAGOG? He needs to go......But the fact that the cat is afraid of him? MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH.........I have an ally. (laughs evil laugh and wrings hands) He really does need to be caught ------danger danger danger! And the ones that we do catch and release all go to the Citizens watch sign on our other acerage /property....There is one over there that was SO big he wouldn't fit in the container so I had to carry him over by hand. Gave DF the willies. He was Cooooooooool. We do have Widows here......and one year we had loads.......but DF sprayed for them and I haven't seen many since. I wasn't happy about that - but the boys were young and I couldn't catch them all. Even the Extension office recommended spraying it was such a heavy year. We just check stuff before we use it and NEVER leave shoes or gloves outside and shake tarps out before use. And they're all NOT black with red hourglasses. Some are black and white - some are black and orange.....black and salmon.

Why? Do you have an idea what Aragog is? I'd love to know.
 
H

HaoZi

Guest
Since he's a hunter and big, I have to say wolf spider or tarantula would be my first guess at that size (and where I'm from, yes the wolf spiders get that big). I've seen some good sized jumping spiders, but nothing along those lines. Ditto trapdoor spiders. A spinner that size I'd lean more towards banana spiders. Got a photo? What's he look like? You should also be able to call the entomology department at a local college and find someone that can tell you.

That jello brain mold - ordered one (don't know why, we never bother with jello), but I'd end up using it to make a big ice cube for the punch bowl. :)
 
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