The Ultimate Halloween Party - Invitations and Decorations

Planning and executing the Ultimate Halloween party takes more than just throwing some fake cobweb-ery up on the walls. It takes more than putting on a clown nose and programming your CD player to replay Michael Jackson's "Thriller" twenty times.

The Ultimate Halloween Party needs to be planned well from start to finish. So we begin with the invitations. These days, many of us utilize the ease and convenience of ecards. And why not? They're more interactive than traditional paper cards and best of all, they're free! They might include music, and certainly take much less time to prepare than traditional cards.

A couple of places to locate your Halloween invite ecards are: www.higreetings.com , www.123greetings.com and for a small fee (but free trial) and a little extra "oomph" you can try www.doozycards.com.

If you are more of a traditionalist, use the United States Postal Service. Go to Michaels, Joannes, Hobby Lobby, any one of your favorite craft stores (office supply stores will have them as well) and purchase Halloween themed paper for your invitations. Everything from a tombstone background, to witches in the sky, skeletons, spiders, it's all there for your choosing. Figure out the spacing on the printer, purchase some fun snazzy Halloween stickers for the envelope and voila, instant invitation. For a lot of people, receiving an invitation in the mail, giving them something to hold and magnetize to the fridge will convince them to participate more than an ecard will.

All of this should be accomplished 4 to 6 weeks before your party. Now just sit back, create a list of your invites so you can check off the RSVP's as they come in (can be done as an excel file too, in case you're a computer geek like me!).

Next thought on your mind? Decorating, of course!

If you are giving a Halloween party, chances are you already have some Halloween inventory up in the attic, or in bins down in the basement. Drag those out to see what you have, because nowadays, a stop at the Spirit store is going to cost you some bucks. If you don't need to duplicate that screaming, red glowing eyed skull, best not to. (Well, unless you need one for the back of the house, of course.)

The idea of throwing an Ultimate Halloween Party is not only the "Halloween" part, but the "Ultimate." You want to completely make your house over (or at least the downstairs) to resemble a haunted house. Most of us do not live in one-hundred year old gothic mansions, so this takes a little bit of planning.

To really envelop a room in creepiness, check out the "Scene Setters" now available. My favorite is the one that looks like grey brick, giving the air of a dungeon. If you have a bare wall in a room that is to be heavily occupied, throw this thin plastic on the walls. Easy on, easy off.

There are also many other tools available to help creep out your guests. Mirror and window clingers are semi-transparent and make it appear as if a ghost is looking out at you.

There are props galore, depending on how much you want to spend - such as a creeping baby (motion activated, put that in the bedroom where the coats go and count how many people come screaming out of there), things to hang that flicker and jostle and fly, other more grounded purchases that lend to the Halloween ambience of a room like skull shelves, skull clocks, pretty much anything you could want is available.

But how to decorate on a limited budget? First, don't forget to use what you've already got. Here are some low cost ideas:

Dead man on a gurney in the morgue: Grab your ironing table, three pillows, and a sheet (preferably white), set this up in the corner of a room, or along the side where people won't be touching it. Position the pillows on top of the ironing table and place the sheet over it. If the sheet is disposable or you don't care if it gets soiled, pour some fake blood in one or two distinct spots for realism. Fake blood is available on a lot of the Halloween sites for purchasing, or you can mix together your own using light corn syrup and red food coloring (adding a drop of blue if necessary to darken it up a bit). Make a sign on a piece of cardboard that reads "Morgue" and hang it above the gurney.

Psycho bathroom: Buy a cheap (they cost about $1.97 at WalMart) white or cream shower liner. Use fake blood (mentioned above) to place hand prints, squirts and drips on the liner. Hang in place of your usual floral one. You can even purchase the metal clips and have the liner coming half of the way off the rod.

Perhaps something inside the tub that will move upon being voice or motion activated will further enhance those that enter the bathroom. Hey, they had to go anyway!

The key to Halloween decorating is in the details. Create a graveyard in your yard, out front or out back doesn't matter, as long as people will see it. Stores have foam tombstones for sale that look fairly realistic and fun, but you can create your own out of some thick cardboard. This way, you could even put the names of the party-goers on them to further enhance the customization.

Don't forget about the lighting - replace black lights where you can, though it's unsafe in the bathroom area to do this, and you might want a regular light in the kitchen so you can see what you're doing in there.

Use all of those little Halloween figurines you have to enhance the drink table, the food table, side tables. Use luminaries going up the stairs and out by the walk by the graveyard you've created.

Make sure you create "zones" or areas for scares. Just like the morgue table guy mentioned above, place objects where people might least expect them (a plastic spider in the icecubes for example).

Another fun thing that can get the kids involved is to create your own Ghastly Bottles. Any used liquor or wine bottles will do for this. Clean them out, then fill them with water and drop the inside of a highlighter pen inside each. After some time, the water will turn that pink, blue, or yellow color. Create your own labels, be creative with the sharpie and make your own "Zombie Virus," "Embalming Juice," "Liquid Phantom," have your kids help you make up your own!

Once these are done, try shining a black light on them from behind. Place tiny spiders and eyeballs in the bottles to add to the gothic mystique.

The Ultimate Halloween Party is mostly about having fun, but it's also about creating a world unlike any other, giving your guests the best Halloween party atmosphere they've ever been in. Good luck, and happy Halloween!