February 24th 2016 - Halloween Preparation

YES I know it's MONTHS until Halloween 2016 BUT i'm stating preparation early, infact I started it this time last year with my spell book.

This years theme is going to be HARRY POTTER (HP)!  2/3 of my sons really like HP, me and hubby like it and it's going to be very easy to do.  During half term we went to the Harry Potter Studio tour and I took loads of photos to help with ideas. All of the people who will be invited have been pre-warned of the theme so that they have time to sort out witch/wizard outfits or a character from the HP series if they wish to.  If they want to just dress halloweeny that fine with me.

I have pieces of paper and word docs all over the place that have various ideas on - whether for decorations, outfits, props, food, games etc.  I plan to add them to here so that they are all in 1 place and I can access them (as well as helping others with ideas).  I can't claim that alll ideas are my own, nor can I remember exactly what page/site on google that I found.  IF I am able to add a link to the source I will do, but if not I thank the original person now for sharing their ideas.

I plan to post ALL ideas on here and I wont be saying which ones I am doing - I will confirm some but not all as I want them to be a supprise for my friends at the party. 

I think I will make extra posts linked to the party - 1 of food ideas, 1 of games, 1 of decorations etc, that way they will be easier to add to and easier to find.

My house has an "L" shaped lounge/dinner and part of that is the under stairs cupboard.  YES you've guessed it this is going to be "Harry's bedroom" under the stairs.  It does mean that all my "junk" that gets chucked in there will need to be moved in order to make it work.   BUT it will be sorted by halloween.  This is also going to be accessible for all of the children to go in one at a time and have a photo taken which I will print out for them to take home at end of party.  I am going to print out some book images to fix to the underside of the stairs as well as making a meter box from cardboard.  There will be toy soldiers, an air bed and cover and shoes and not forgetting "Hedwig" the owl in a cage and dustpan and brush on the door.

Hedwig is a soft toy owl that came from £1 shop, however, its more grey than white so I am going to keep looking for a more white one.


My spell book that I started last year is now in it's final stages.  From my original idea of printing the pages and sticking them to pages in an old book didn't work as the printed pages were the same size as pages and made the book too thick to close, so I have used a make your own book website and had the spells professionally printed.  This is going to be fixed (somehow) into the original cover I made.  Watch this space!!!  I also made a second book of Witches food and meals (not that I would want to eat them) but this has been printed as well.

November 3rd 2015 - Halloween is over.....

.....For another year.  :(

This means that my poor hubby has been back in the loft to put away all of the decorations that we had taken to our friends as well as new bits we have bought in the sale.

Our loft is a combination of boxes of various party themes (pirate, glow in dark etc), christmas decorations (each colour has its own box) and halloween.

The halloween stuff is all in set boxes - i have a box of spiders and spider accessories like webbing, mummy wrapped skeletons (like wrapped in spiders web), spider tablecoth, spider nests etc.  I have a box that has the plastes, serving bowls, trays, cups and glasses and such.  There is a box of costumes, a box of witches, a box of "random bits" like bunting, safety tape, naff inflatables (that the kids love) and then boxes of bigger things like skulls, lights, pumpkins and anything else not mentioned.  Everything has its own box and has to go back in it after halloween!

October 31st 2015 - HaPpY HaLlOwEeN!!!

On the last day of October we celebrate the pagan festival of Samhain.  It is believed that this is when the veil between living and dead is at its thinest and is a day to celebrate those that have gone before us.  The name is also known as all hallows eve, which over the years has become halloween.

I love halloween, and cant get enough of it.  I have spent most of this year making various potion bottles for my friend and making my spell book ready for next years harry potter party.  We have made halloween cakes and done loads of halloween crafts.  And now is the time it all comes together.  The halloween party is as much for the adults as it the children, we all dress up and have fun!

This year the party is being held at my friends house and she doesnt do themes or anything like that, it just gets decorated and every comes in what they like etc.

I decided after halloween 2014 that I was going to go as a nurse.  I got an outfit in my size very cheap and i was able to alter it and make better with fake blood!  Here is me:

Hubby's outfit didnt need altering, he went a skeleton master:

My eldest wanted to go as a mad chef.  We found a really cool top that needed some work, so I attacked it with fake blood.  I picked up a chef hat and plastic sword in £1 shop and a pair of checked trousers on ebay.  all of which were made better.

My middle son didn't know what he wanted to go as and as a result his outfit didnt get bought until 2weeks ago!  He went as a devil:

My youngest was adamant after halloween 2014 that he was going as a BLUE Wizard!  I found a lovely purple and black outfit but no it wasnt blue so he didnt want it!  I kept looking and found a blue wizard robe and hat, only snag was it was 2sizes 2 big for him (he's tiny!)  But I bought it, it arrived and I wasnt happy with it, it was very plain and needed making better.  I ordered some blue ribbon with silver moons and stars on and stitched it to various parts of the robe.  I bought him a blue jumper and trousers and added the ribbon to theses as well and we made a wand:

And here we are all together:

We had a great night and i can now start working on next years harry potter party!

October 30th 2015 - decorating for halloween

We eventually arrived at my best friends house yesterday, after a very long journey that took over an hour longer than usual and had the kids fighting more than usual in the car.

She had made a start on decorating for halloween but had left most of it for me to do as she didnt have the patience.

I raided the cupboard under the sink for bin bags and found both black and white (yes!) aand set up cutting them into strips, tying 2 together with a knot so that we could use them as a creepy door cover.  Some went up really easily to door frames but we had to staple them to the arch in the kitchen wall as tape and blue tak wouldnt hold.

they looked better in the dark and they did feel creepy asyou walked through them as they stuck to your face.

We (I) also covered her hallway, stairs and landing in spiders web stuff.  This was left to me to sort as she knew I had done my house with it last year and i managed to spread it thin and wispy.

 
















My friend changed all her light bulbs to red or green, and we added a few other bits like fabric spider webs, spider nests that I made, mummy wrapped dolls and skeletons, and the kids allcarved pumpkins.

(this pic was from saturday night party when we put the fake candles in them).

I think at this point we were just about ready decoration wise.

October 28th 2015 - paper pumpkin

 today was the last of our halloween crafts before the party.  We made paper pumpkins similar to these.  ours were made with orange and yellow paper and we stapled them together as couldnt find any glue.

I havent been able to add a picture as i cant find where lil man put it.  All i know is that it didnt go with us to the party.

October 27th 2015 - Roll a pumpkin game

Me and lil man had a game of roll a pumpkin today.  We had a dice but  no paper to hand so we drew our pictures on the paint programe on my laptop.

Mine is on left made with shapes, lil man used the pencil to draw his.

We had good fun and must have had about 5 or 6 goes - the1 of the image we both drew what ever was rolled so no-1 won.

if you roll a 1 - you draw the body
if you roll a 2 - you draw the stalk
if you roll a 3 - you draw the leaf
if you roll a 4 - you draw the eyes
if you roll a 5 - you draw the nose
if you roll a 6 - you draw the mouth

October 25th 2015 - Halloween Crafts

Today has mainly been spent doing Halloween Crafts.

Lil man came down with an empty toilet roll tube and asked what he could turn it into - well he decided to turn it into a witch.

He  then asked if he could have some halloween pictures to paint and colour, which he did.

October 23rd 2015 - Halloween day at school

As today is the last day of term the school allow the children to go dressed up in Halloween outfits and they have a day of fun as wel as some work.

This year my middle son (eldest of the 2 at the school) wanted to go as a Skeleton Pirate, and this is what we did for him:

This  was very easy to sort as all 3 boys have pirate outfits and we had  2 skeletons outfits so it was just a case of mix and match of what fitted him best.  He had to have a mask as he is allergic to face paints.  Apart from fact skeleton legs bit short he looks really good.

My youngest  son found a pair of monster feet in a charity shop and said that he was going to wear them and go as a monster for Halloween at school.  Meet the feet:

The only problem we faced now was he had no monster outfit.  "Not a problem you can make me one mummy" says son!  Hahaha!

Well I hunted ebay and found a cute fluffy dog onesie that was similar colours to the feet, and thought I could alter it (see post).  It altered really well and here is lil man dressed as a monster ready to go to school:

I think he looks really cool.  I'm not sure the school are going to be happy as the monster feet make monster noises as he walks!!! lol.

Hope they both have a good day.

October 15the 2015 - SALE

SALE the word all women love and all  men hate as it costs them money!

This sale that I am referring to is in my local b&m store, they have some halloween bits reduced already, not sure if they are last years stock or what but I don't really care either!  I picked up a set of red had print lights (will be used when I do my bathroom as a blood scene) they were reduced to £1.  I picked up a fairly large purple glitter plumpkin again reduced to £1 (my friend is having this she just needs a tealight for it.)  And a mini purple pumpkin that was 10p (again going to friend).

I am also keeping an eye out for cheap witches hats for next year, so again I will be hunting the sales for them.

October 12th 2015 - Frankenstein repair kit

Following on from previous Halloween posts and apothecary bottles I have spent today making a Frankenstein repair kit.  

This has to be one of the easiest apothecary bottles you can make.  You need the following items:

An empty spice bottle.

An assortment of screws, nails, bolts, pieces of wire, springs etc.

Combine them together and seal the lid to itself and then to the jar with a strong glue like UHU.  Allow to dry.  Then you can add a label that says:

And you  have your finished frankenstein repair kit in a bottle ready to add to your apothecary shelf.

October 9th 2015 - syringe

I had thought about a syringe to go with my nurses outfit.  I also thought about making them full of jelly, but that might scare the kids at the party.  So I was going to buy a pen version except the only ones I could find were from china and wouldnt be here in time.  This left me thinking...... and it came to me, I have 3 children who have calpol and such in the cupboard = syringe!

I started hunting and found more medicine spoons than the local chemist has, lots of the syringes that come with ibuprofen but not a single clear syringe.  There had to be one somewhere in my house, so I kept looking.  I found one in the draw with the pasta and rice, I can only assume it has fallen out of the cutlery drawer and in there.  Well it was going to get a make over.


Take one syringe :

  and some extreme repair glue*:








Remove the syringe plunger, fill the nozel end with the glue, making sure it is fully covered so that you get no leaks later on. Allow to dry.

Next mix some fake blood, pva glue and a drop of alcohol hand gel and combine well by shaking, you should have a nice bright red mixture, you may need to add a drop or 2 of red food colouring if it looks pinky because of the pva glue.  Pour this mix into the syringe so its between 1/2-3/4 full.  Wipe the inside of the top of the syringe with a tissue so that it is dry.

(YOU NEED ABOUT 5 HANDS NOW!)  keeping the syringe the right way up so nothing spills out, you need to coat the rubber end of the plungers part with the extreme repair glue, make sure it is all covered as you don't want any leaks.  Carefully push the plunger into the syringe so that the rubber end is just into the main body of the syringe.  IF you push too hard you may dislodge the glue at the other end.  Place more extreme repair glue around the whole end of the syringe so it is fully sealed.  You may need to do a 2nd coat once dry to be sure there are no gaps.

You should now have something that looks like this:

I have added a keyring loop through the side of syringe and an ID fob clip so it can be attached to my outfit.  Great prop at no cost as already had the stuff.

*extreme repair glue is brilliant as it is a flexible rubber type glue that it fully waterproof - it is used to repair tents and hiking shoes. can be bought in wilkinsons.

October 7th 2015 - Pass the pumpkin game

October 7th 2015 - Pass the pumpkin game

Last Halloween I came up with the idea of the pass the pumpkin game based on the traditional pass the pass the parcel.  However, instead of keeping going with unwrapping to get the prize each player it landed on took a sweet from the pumpkin, once everyone had had 2 sweets (we only had small numbers playing) the next time the music stopped that person took home the pumpkin and all the rest of the sweets in it.

In the sale after halloween last year I picked up a plastic pumpkin (trick or treat bag) that we could use for this years party.  Today I have sat and filled it up with sweets of various types - body parts, lollipops and sherbet straws.  It is now ready to take with us to my friends house.

The kids loved playing it last year as they all got sweets.  And it also made up for the fact that they didn't all go trick or treating before the party.

I have also done this as a train.

October 6th 215 - Blood splatter nails

October 6th 2015 - Blood splater nails

To go along with my nurses outfit for halloween I wanted to have blood splatter nails as I think they will look good.  I looked on ebay and the false ones are all really long and as I don't do nails and girly very often they will drive me mad.  I then looked at the sticker options and again say look better on long nails (mine are fairly short).

This left me the option of nail varnish.  I looked at various tutorials and they all said about using a straw and blowing it - well I tried that option and managed to get it on paper not my nails!  So I tried to just tap the brush over my nails without touching them - it worked but its not easy to do on yourself.

However my hubby had a go for me and it's worked out ok.  So on Halloween (or the day before) the hubby will become my own nail technichian once I have done the base and white coats.  I think I my use 2 different reds so it gives a look of some fresh and some not.

Here is the result of the trial run today:

October 4th 2015 - toilet roll mummy

October 4th 2015 - toilet roll mummy

Lil man was wanting to do some crafts today, so as its near Halloween we decided that we would do Halloween crafts.

We have made some toilet roll mummies from a bandage and googly eyes.  It has kept little man amused for while.

September 30th 2015 - Spell book

September 30th 2015 - Spell book

Going back to the beginning of the year I started to make a Spell book from some of the spells on this board.  It has taken ages to get sorted as I have typed up all the spells I want to use, had to make sure they were all the same colour and fonts and all had the page logo on.  I bought cream paper to print them on and hhad to wait until I had ink to actually dothem.

I spent a long time today printing the pages, some duplicated, some printed in a pinky colour not brown so I had to re-do them.  I am happy to say that my spells are now printed for the book.  I just need to glue the pages to the book that I made.

This is just 1 page before it was printed on cream paper but it gives you an idea of what I have done.

September 27th 2015 - blood splatters

September 27th 2015 - blood splatters


Today has been a very gory day.  As halloween is now very close to us it was time to add some more blood splatters to the costumes that needed them.  My garden looks like a murder scene - there is red spray paint on the grass from where I did my shoes last week, there are halloween outfits hanging on the line all dripping with fake blood and there is fake blood on the patio.  It's all good fun!

So the outfits needed more blood splatters were my nurses dress:

It looked very "shop bought" and not very scary/bloody etc and my tights were plain white, so I made a mix of pva glue and fake blood and stuck it in a spray bottle and set about attacking the dress!


















My eldest sons chef outfit:

that was all the outfit had - the plastic mouth and plastic blood coming down from it, the trousers were just summer checked ones so again had no blood and the hat was a £1 shop chef hat so had no blood.  I hung them out on the line and used the same mix as I used on my dress. 

I can safely say they look much better now.  And because of the pva glue in them some of the runny bits have stayed as thick lines.  Here are the new amended outfits:

nurse dress and tights

chefs top, trousers and hat

Hubby and the other 2 didnt need blood adding to their outfits.

September 25th 2015 - Pumpkin game

September 25th 2015 - Pumpkin game

For Halloween my friend has asked me to sort out the games for the party.  This got me thinking of what we could do that wont involve lots of things needing to be taken with us.  I was also thinking along the lines of normal party games that we could make "halloweeny".

I had the thought on musical chairs - we don't have much room or enough chairs for loads of kids BUT we do have cushions, and from here came the idea of making pumpkins from paper for it.  I found a pumpkin template, asked my friends to help with orange paper/card as I didn't have any (2 of my friends were able to help).  I printed the pumpkin image and cut it out, and used it to draw round on the orange paper.  These were then cut out and the extra lines added, the pumpkin stalks were made from brown paper and glued on.  From here they are going to be laminated so can be re-used.

 Although this may look big it was cur out of A4 paper, and its not as dark as it looks its a real bright orange.

The idea is that of musical chairs, each child will start with a pumpkin on the floor and they will dance round them etc, when the music stops they need to stand on a pumpkin.   After the first round 1 pumpkin is removed so there is an extra child to pumpkin.  therefore when the music stops 1 child will not have a pumpkin to stand on and will be  out.  Another pumpkin will be removed and play will continue.  The winner is the last child that stands on the single pumpkin out of the last 2.

September 24th 2015 - Halloween party bags

September 24th 2015 - Halloween party bags

Yes I know there is over a month until Halloween but you can never be too ready for it.  I had a bit of  a panic the other day as there was  a poosibilty that the party was ggoing to be at my house and not friends, I wasn't going to be able to do a theme as hadn't got the time, it wasnt going to be as good as last year and I didn't know how I was going to sort it all with my knee being bad.

Well my friend rang me, she has decided she will be ok to host it this year but can I help her with preperations, party bags for the kids and the games.  I agreed as these are not major, she has said that she will cover the costs that I incure for buying stuff.

Well I know that I had pinned this pin linked tohalloween party bags with the goodies being in a glove but I am unable to find it so had to re-pin it today.   I have had a very halloweeny day today, we started off by getting EVERYTHING out of the loft and making a new inventory list as we couldnt find the 1 we had.   Then I started on the party bags with what I had.

Take 1 first aid/medical glove:

 an assortment of halloween novelties - eye patch, spinner, rubber hand (also had spiders, finger puppets etc) and a mini puzzle:

Put all bits in gloves and set aside until you get the sweets next week to shove in the fingers - we are going for the gory body parts and eyeballs etc.  Then the gloves will be tied off at the top and ready to go in the box with party bits.

September 20th 2015 - from cute n fluffy to nasty

September 20th 2015 - from cute n fluffy to nasty

If you have been following my blog you will be aware of the monster feet I picked up in a chairty shop the other week and how my youngest son wanted an outfit to go with them for halloween.  I made a post about winning a cute and fluffy dog outfit that I planned to alter.

This was the cute and fluffy dog:

NOT very halloween or scary monster is it?  No, that's what me and lil man thought BUT it was brown and grey which are 2 of the colours in the monster feet, the 3rd is a dark blue which is why I started making spikes the other day to sew on it down the back.  This is what it looks like:

 It's a start on making it not so nice and cute.  The next step was to shave round the eyes so they were not so fluffy and would be easier to sew on.  Lil man said he wanted big red eyes, so out came the greaseproof paper (had no tracing paper), so I could get the shape of the eyes.  I then cut out my template and drew round it on red felt.  The hardest part was getting the eyeball in the right place.  But I didn't give up and I stitched the red felt eyes onto.  Whilst I was doing the eyes lil man asked if he could have some fangs from its mouth, so I did them from felt at the same time.  Here is the now not so cute looking dog. 

BUT it does still have a dog look about it, because of its long floppy ears, these seemed to be our biggest problem. 

I said I could try and stuff them with pillow stuffing in the hope that they would stand up slightly, so that is what I did.  BUT it didn't make it any less dog looking.  (And 1 not happy lil man as it still looks like a dog!)

SO the big question was what to do next to get rid of the last cut dog look.  My eldest said to cut the ears into a point (errrr thanks couldn't you have suggested that before I cut, stuffed and sticthed them???)   So I took my fabric scissors and just through the ears much to lil mans shocked face!  I then started to make some points for them from spare blue material and they looked like a reindeer (this was getting worse not better and I didnt take a pic of reindeer). 

I then cut the multiple points into singles and stitched them at the end of the now cut ears, inally they looked more monster than dog. (YAY!!!)

All that is left to do is to add the spike onto both shoulders and then take a pic of him complete, will do that and add later.

September 16th 2015 - Smoking couldron

September 16th 2015 - Smoking Couldron

I have wanted a smoking cauldron for a few years to use at halloween,but they are always very expensive.  Last year I picked up a plasticcauldron that was being sol as a plant pot and hoped we could turn it into a smoking couldron but we never got that far.

Today whilst shopping I came across a smoking cauldron that isn't actually smoke but water mist.  It looks really good an will look better in the dark.  It doesn't get hot or use chemicals which is better with pets and children about.