House of Spooks Halloween Party

October is my favorite month of the year and Halloween is one of my favorite holidays! Since Halloween falls on a school night this year, a House of Spooks Halloween party for my sons and nieces was in order.

The Decor:

My youngest son is almost 3 and is now totally aware of the "Spookies" so I decided to go cutesy instead of scary for the little ones. My inspiration for the theme was this Haunted House I picked up at Costco. I decided to keep a modest budget for this party since we had 3 birthday parties in the last several weeks and still have another birthday and wedding anniversary to celebrate this month.

I started with my large stash of Halloween decor (which I add to every year the day after Halloween when everything is at least 50% off).  This year, I did find a ton of great items at the Dollar Tree that fit perfectly within my budget and color scheme. I also reused several elements from recent parties such as the tulle backdrop from my Seinfeld party.

LOVE these Haunted House boxes and Tombstones (filled with candy bones) that I found at the Dollar Tree and the little plastic ghosts filler found in the dollar bins at Target.

I made the sign with my Cricut and attached Peeps on to sticks with personalized ribbon I purchased last year from Pick Your Plum. The web "curtains" are actually 2 table runners I picked up last year at Michaels.

These snack cups were also from the dollar bin at Target. What a steal! 10 for $1! I added my tags and filled them with cinnamon popcorn.

The names on the tombstones are hilarious!
Diane Rott, Juan Toomany, Will B. Back, Dr. Acula, Myra Maines and Ima Ghoul. They remind me of the tombstones at the Haunted Mansion ride in Disneyland. :)

The Sweets:
We served several sweets for the sweets.  Velata caramel chocolate fondue with caramel marshmallows, candy corn sugar cookies, mummy brownie pops, cupcakes with witch hat toppers and fondont skulls, and I made a candy corn rice cereal treat bundt "cake".

My sweet friend Jamie whipped up these sugar cookies and brownie pops, aren't they adorable?

Jamie also made these pinterest inspired Witch Hats for the cupcakes.....

 

 

I made these fondant toppers using a silicone skull ice tray I found at the Dollar Tree.

I was going to make some cereal treat candy corns I saw on pinterest, but then I decided to put my own spin on it and and make a cereal treat "cake" topped with shredded coconut. When sliced, it resembled a candy corn.

 
The Party Favors and Activities:
We played Halloween Bowling, Give the Skeleton a Heart, Halloween "Twister", Bingo, Spider Web Darts and Monster Toss. I made the kids their own Trick or Treat Loot Bags which they filled with treats and prizes they won from playing games.

Party Favor goodies and candy purchased from the Dollar Tree, 99 cent store and dollar bin at Target.

Recognize the Monster Toss? It was first used at my son's Monster Bash birthday party. 

One of my favorite moments was watching the kids play a Halloween version of twister.

B-I-N-G-O!

The Food:

We made a Tostada Bar with all the fixings, rice, beans, grape punch, chips and salsa to fill the tummies!

At Nightfall:

Once the sun went down the black lights were turned on and our home became the HOUSE OF SPOOKS.

The little one wanted to change mid-party. :)

It was another great party with wonderful family!

Thank you for visiting and be sure to download your FREE Printable Halloween Tags!

VENDOR CREDITS:

Event Planning, Styling & Set Up - Party Plan-It Designs
Party Stationery and Customized Coordinating Decor: Party Plan-It Designs

Photography: Party Plan-It Designs

Chevron Nut Cups: Pick Your Plum

Treat Tubes: Party On Designs

Cupcake/Cake Pop Stand: Cupcake Stand

Freebie: Spooktacular Chevron Tags

It's time for a SPOOKTACULAR Freebie! I am pleased to share with you our Chevron Halloween Tags. Perfect for classroom parties and party favors! Quick, easy and best of all, FREE!

These tags are designed to be versatile!
IDEAS:
Use a 3.5" punch to make them large favor tags or to attach to a gable box.
Use a 2.5" punch and glue them to lollipop sticks for cupcake toppers.
Use a 2.5" punch and attached them to 3.5" scalloped tags to make them layered tags.
Use a 2.5" punch and attach them to your candy dishes, etc.

Some items you may need to create tags.
Acrobat Reader to open pdfs
cardstock
printer
hole punch
lollipop sticks or toothpicks
ribbon
3 or 3.5 inch punch
2 or 2.5 inch punch

DOWNLOAD HERE

Thanks for visiting!

A TRON Party for Two

Two of my three boys have a birthday in October and it's been a tradition to celebrate their birthdays with one big party.  This year the boys wanted a TRON themed party combined with Cosmic Bowling and a sleepover with all of their friends.

 
The Decor:
Tron Legacy is not a new movie, so it was difficult to find coordinating party supplies, but luckily Disney Family still had a whole section on their site dedicated to Tron for inspiration. A major challenge was to mimic the environment of the grid without making it a glow in the dark party because good black lighting can be costly.  We decided to utilize LED lights and also replaced our regular light bulbs with black lights. Fortunately, stores have stocked up on both holiday lights and black lights for Halloween and Christmas.

Kevin Flynn's house in the Grid was a major inspiration for the dessert table along with the Recognizer cardboard cut out I found on Amazon.

I utilized rope light and light cycle toys to capture the light cycle game sequence from the movie.

The Desserts:
I decided to have a simple dessert table for several of reasons:
1. The kids were going to be with us overnight and I didn't want 9 kids overly excited from the sugar rush;
2. Time - because my husband's 40th bday was last weekend I just didn't have a whole lot of time to prepare a large buffet of goodies and
3. Cost- since we were taking all the kids Cosmic Bowling I needed to stick to a modest dessert table budget.

Cereal treats identity discs dipped in blue chocolate.

Blueberry Jello in shot glasses.

Sugar cookies from Casey's Confections.

The donuts also reminded me of Identity Discs.

I also made a Fondant Light Cycle using a template from the Disney site.  I also found these Tron characters on the Disney site, I enlarged them and printed them on card stock for decor.

 

We also served an assortment of candy including chocolate bars, chocolate nuggets, gumballs and licorice. And chocolate covered pretzels with "Flynn's Arcade Snacks" toppers.

Cupcakes with identity discs which I made from Wilton sugar sheets and a scrapbook punch.

And of course the Cake.

Goodie bags.

The invitation.

Cosmic Bowling:


A local bowling alley has glow in the dark bowling on the weekends and it was the perfect activity to continue on with the Tron theme.  The kids all had a great time bowling the night away.

Overall the party was a huge hit with my boys and their friends. We had a great time celebrating 2 very important birthdays.


Happy Birthday Tristan and Gavin!

Thanks for visiting!

VENDOR CREDITS:

Event Planning, Styling & Set Up - Party Plan-It Designs
Party Stationery and Customized Coordinating Decor: Party Plan-It Designs

Photography: Party Plan-It Designs

Cookies: Casey's Confections