Halloween '15

What a fabulous way to celebrate Halloween! We were lucky to celebrate it right on the 31st this year as it was a Saturday. Although Halloween is not widely celebrated in Australia, we are doing our best to make it happen!

I tried to keep the theme not too gruesome as we have little ones; but they weren't scared of anything. In fact our talking witch greeter was their favourite prop!

We had some fun finding second hand furniture to suit or spooky manor theme; the Chinese cabinet and carved antique chair were definite highlights. Plus we got to keep them afterwards. Bonus! The rest of the furniture - kids table, chairs - were hired from a local party place at a really reasonable price.

For decoration, we made some props ourselves and bought others. A LOT of muslin was harmed in the making of this party... :) we draped it all the way across the room and used it as a backdrop for our photobooth. We photo edited ourselves using PicMonkey, the photo editing website. That was a lot of fun - we even 'zombiefied' our Labradors! The kids were thrilled.

We hung spangled spirals from the ceiling in the 'parlour' area. Outside we strung black paper lanterns across the party room; tables were covered in white tablecloths and lace cobweb runners then decorated with glitter spiders, skull table scatters and old wine bottles melted over with candlewax.

The highlight of the day was the cookie decorating station; the kids had an absolute blast decorating their own sugar cookies which they were then able to take home at the end of the party.

Savoury food included 'devil' chicken wings, salads, pulled pork sliders and mummy hot dogs for the kids. We also carved a watermelon and served that as it was such a hot day!

The pumpkin piñata was a lot of fun, and the finale of the day was a doughnut eating contest (in costume!) where we hung Krispy Kreme spider web doughnuts off the clothesline. Even the adults joined in.

It was a spectacular day and a wonderful party. Can't wait till next year!

• What People Ate

  Spicy devil chicken wings, pulled pork sliders, spooky potato salad, watermelon shaped like bats.

• What People Drank

  Orange punch, blood (wine)

• Desserts

  'Brain' cupcakes (red velvet cupcakes with squiggly icing), sugar cookies, Krispy Kreme doughnuts

• Party Favors

  Monster High dolls (girls), Monster Trucks (boys), halloween-themed lollies, cookies

• Activities / Games

  Doughnut eating contest, cookie decorating, photobooth, pumpkin piñata, digging for bones in sandpit