101 Tips for Halloween

The Halloween season is upon us again. This year; we've compiled the top 101 tips our visitors submitted last year! We hope you enjoy them. If you have any of your own, please contact us and maybe we'll add yours to our list next year!

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Safety Tips
Party Tips
Decorating Tips
Costume Tips
Trick or Treating
Just for Fun!

Halloween Safety Tips

When buying costumes, check the material. Vinyl and nylon are very flammable.
The Princess looks wonderful in a long, flowing dress. But not if she trips on it. Make sure hems of anything long are well above ground level, and not likely to tangle in little feet.
If you make a costume out of material and/or other things like cardboard, make sure the color will not run if it rains.
Make sure children are dressed appropriately for the weather. Even a bridal gown can still be elegant with a sweater inside where it can’t be seen.
Contact lenses should only be used by older, responsible children with the approval of your eye care professional. Some lens are hard and can scratch the eye if inserted improperly by a child not experienced in handling them.
Choose appropriate footwear for the evening. Boots that are too large or high heels can cause accidents. Make sure laces are double tied and unlikely to come undone.
Names on costumes are not recommended, on the chance that a stranger may call your child by name, and convince them that they know your family. If you want to identify children, especially those wearing the same costumes, add a patch of color, or an accessory that is identified only with them. Personal identification should be concealed under the costume in a pocket, or pinned to the inside.
Imitation weapons are frowned on for the possibility they can be taken and use for other purposes. If a weapon is part of someone’s costume, make sure it is obviously fake, as well as soft and flexible.
Allow toddlers that can’t go out, to dress up and greet people at the door to help you hand out the goodies. There are even costumes for infants to trick or treat with grandparents!
Throw out all unwrapped candy, unless it is acquired from a relative or close friend. Fruit is seldom tampered with, and if you are comfortable with allowing them to have it, each piece should be washed and sliced in small pieces for inspection.
Homemade treats should only be kept from homes you know and are certain would be safe. These items should be taken out immediately and put aside so they do not become confused with other homemade goods that are from unknown sources.
All treats should be inspected by parents before children are allowed to eat them. You might wish to throw out wrapped candies with loose papers.
Masks should allow clear visibility. Buy the appropriate size for the child and make sure there is lots of room to see, and good ventilation. Two-sided toupee tape can be used to keep a mask “stuck” to the forehead or cheeks so there is no interference with vision or breathing.
Halloween is dark and spooky. Equip your child with a themed flashlight as part of their costume. Dollar stores have a great selection with skulls, pumpkins, bats and more.
Make sure your child can be seen, as well as they can see. Add reflective tape to the front and back of costumes. It can even be cut into shapes!
Let children help with the pumpkin carving by getting a kit that has the tiny saws, which are less likely to cause injury than a knife.
Have a set area where your children may trick or treat, and a firm time for their return.
Remind trick or treaters to stay in well lit areas, and not to take shortcuts, back alleys, or hidden paths where they can’t be seen by others.
Clear your yard of any hazards such as lawn tools left out, garden implements and other things that can trip eager children rushing to the door.
Keep your stairs/doorway well lit so that youngsters are not intimidated, and everyone can see where they are going.
Use chemical light sticks inside your pumpkins. The glow is eerie, and there is no danger of causing a fire.
Have supper before trick or treating, no matter how excited the kids are. Full stomachs are not as inclined to sample the treats before they are inspected.
Make sure all children know how to call 911, your own phone number and address, and where there is a “safe” house should they become lost or scared.
Keep family pets away from the door and out of the yard. Cats can slip by you when trick or treaters arrive and get lost in the confusion outside. Dogs become very excited by company and may scare younger children.
Cut down on the sugar and fats you hand out by using packets of crackers and cheese or peanut butter, low fat popcorn, boxes of raisins, dried fruits, or non-food treats such as pencils, erasers, stickers, small Halloween figures from the dollar store. Be sure not to accidentally put small things in the bags of toddlers.
Teach your children to respect each other and people’s property. No stampeding through gardens or bushes, and no shoving when running into others going up stairs or along a walkway.
Remind trick or treaters not to enter a home to get their treats.
Be careful driving your own children around, and remind them to watch out for the cars of other parents.
Give consideration to how old your child is, before letting them trick or treat, all by themselves. Somewhere between 9 and 12 is a good age to let them soar off on a broom alone, as long as they know the safety rules and what to do in an emergency.
The same safety rules apply to Halloween as the rest of the year. Look both ways before crossing the street, and watch out for swinging gates, things on paths or walkways, and the other “guy” who may not be watching out themselves!
Ration the intake of candy on Halloween and in the days after. Overindulgence can result in tummy aches, no appetite for meals, and dental bills!

Halloween Party Tips

Use hollowed out pumpkins for punch bowls. Don’t forget to save the seeds. Wash them off, dry and later they can be roasted and salted for snacking.
Take mini squash/pumpkins, hollow out and use for dips
Plastic skulls can be had at low prices from dollar stores. Cut the tops off and use as candy dishes.
Freeze mini plastic spiders and other ghoulish things in your ice cubes for drinks
For the punch bowl, take a clear plastic glove, fill with water and freeze. Then peel and toss in the punch bowl.
Buy Halloween shaped ice cube trays and freeze some of your punch in the cubes, or dye some with food coloring for a contrast while retaining the flavor.
Invent horrific names for your party fare and create labels for the dishes, platters and containers. Try Eye of Newt for olives, Bat Kidneys, Mummy Mold.
Instead of bobbing for apples, have a slime grab. Take a bucket and fill with half set jello of various colors mixed to a perfectly nauseous shade. Put a variety of coins in the bottom and offer a prize for the person who finds the dime. Hold the bucket above eye level so there is no cheating. One grab only! And have a bucket of water and towel for the clean up.

Halloween Decoration Tips

Put up a fake web around the door. Insert candy spiders so that you can pluck one when trick or treaters come, and enjoy a snack while handing out candy.
Inexpensive Bristol board means you can create an entire graveyard of tombstones to line the walkway to your front door. Invent names like I. M. Dead
For the outdoor pumpkin, grab attention by putting them where they are least expected. The top of the car, top of a step ladder, crotch of a bare tree…all good choices. Make sure to use light sticks that are long lasting so you don’t have to trot around and replenish them in the dark.
Occupy the kids prior to the big day by having a Grave Digging night and let each one carve a pumpkin that you can use for decorations after. Have prizes for the winners, like toothbrushes and paste, or Halloween themed pencils, erasers, etc.
Create fresh “graves” in your front yard with dirt brought from the garden. Mound it up and stick a shovel in the top, along with a rubber hand reaching up out of the dirt. Even spookier if you hide a walkie-talkie behind the headstone and watch for unsuspecting victims.
Look for a life size skeleton at the after Halloween sales. Start a tradition by hanging him outside in his bare bones state the first year, then dressing him in different costume for every Halloween after.
Buy motion activated props, like spiders that drop down from the porch eaves, sound effects that are turned on when someone walks by, or hidden “eyes” that flash.
Create your own scarecrows with old clothes. Stuff with newspapers or straw. You can have them sitting in a lawn chair, holding up a wheelbarrow with a jack o’lantern in it, or hanging from a tree.
Use a carved pumpkin for your scarecrow’s head. Be sure to set it up so the pumpkin is secure.
Get tempera paints and turn the kids loose on the windows.
Save your props. Use them to enlarge upon a theme the next year, or swap with friends. Recycle costumes and compost your pumpkins.
Instead of a candle, put an aluminum pie plate inside your pumpkin and coil a string of mini Christmas lights in it, then make a hole in the back to run the cord out through.
Use glow in the dark paint for some of your outdoor accessories, or even just parts of them like limbs or heads.
Mats that talk to anyone who steps on them. A great way to set up friends and neighbors even before the big night.
Using washable tempera paints and an oversize sponge, create monster paw prints that lead to your front door and to the handle. Up the fear factor by making long “scratches” on the door with fake blood.
Check department stores to see if they have any broken mannequins. Arms and legs sticking out of unexpected places can be quite hair-raising.
Use lighting as part of your décor. Low light where appropriate, orange light bulbs, black light bulbs, and the “black light” bulbs which make white things glow in the “dark”.
Look for after Halloween sales on large and small skeletons, especially broken ones, then create piles of bones for the yard next year.
Gross the kids out by flanking your steps or doors with a pair of jack o’lanterns that are spewing the seeds and innards from the carving.
Scatter foil Halloween confetti over the porch where it will pick up the light.
Remember when carving a pumpkin, that larger ones are older and have tougher skin.
Create a mummy by taking old, no longer wanted clothes, and stuffing them to make a body. Get old white sheets or inexpensive roles of muslin, and cut strips for bandages and wrap your body up. Buy fake eyeballs to set in the head. Brown spray paint can be added along bandage seams for that antique look.

Halloween Costume Tips

If you’ve invested in an expensive latex mask, preserve it with an inexpensive Styrofoam “head” that wig makers use. This helps retain the human head shape. Place in dust/air tight bag in a cool place.
Petroleum jelly or a good layer of cold cream under make-up and fake blood, makes it easier to remove.
Fake blood can be made from slightly thinned corn syrup and food coloring, but remember that even commercial “blood” can be sticky, and either one may stain.
Dress as a pumpkin using a fall leaf bag that is orange in color. Make a hole in the center bottom for your head/neck and then gather the bottom around your hips with a drawstring. Fill the inside with the pre-inflated bags of air used for packing fragile items for the mail. Draw a face on the bag and wear orange tights and an orange sweater with a green beanie.
Create a fine vintage costume with purple sweater, shorts and tights, plus a bunch of inflated purple balloons tied or sews in a tight grouping from shoulders to hips.
Take a face painting and/or make-up class to learn how this simple tool can be the highlight of your costume
Powder your face well with baby powder and use an eyebrow pencil to create that wrinkled/cracked look
Always test make-up on your skin prior to the big night.
Thrift stores are great resources for entire costumes or essential pieces at great prices.
Short on time and money? The cardboard box is your best friend. They can be used to make robots, fridges, Rubic cubes, televisions, presents, dice and more!

Halloween Trick or Treating Tips

Monster pops: Insert Popsicle sticks into large marshmallows and place in freezer. Melt white chocolate chips, take your monster pop and dip in the chocolate for a thin coating. Twist as you remove for a mummy-like wrapping, allow top to peak for ghost, or flatten it for a Frankenstein look. Color chocolate with orange for pumpkins or green for Frankenstein. Use dabs of melted dark chocolate to make faces.
Popcorn balls: 10c. popped and unsalted or buttered corn. 1 c corn syrup, 1 c granulated sugar. Put syrup and sugar in a large pickling or other spacious pot, and stir over medium heat until melted and blended. Pour in popcorn and stir with a wooden spoon, continuing to cook until the mixture is very stiff. With clean hands, shape into balls, wrap in plastic or a sandwich bag. To dye the balls, use food coloring or sprinkle in some flavored jello powder.
Bat kidneys: Two cups of shelled and peeled peanuts. One cup barbecue sauce. Coat peanuts well then bake 7-10 minutes on a foil lined cookie sheet at 325 degrees. Remove when done. Let cool then pour into dish and make sure you label it.
Monster eyeballs: Half a hard boiled egg with an olive on top for the pupil. Use a toothpick dipped in red food dye to draw bloodshot lines on the eyeball. Can also be done with small sugar cookies that you set a slice of round jelly candy in before cooking.
Barf bats: Cook a pizza crust spread in a rectangle on a cookie sheet. Use cardboard to draw a bat or other Halloween shape. Spread with pizza sauces, chopped mushrooms, shredded cheese, and broil
Use two small packages of orange jello and set them in a well greased 8x12” cake pan. Turn the jello out and cut with Halloween shaped cookie cutters that have also been oiled.
Grave Goulash: Use lime jello to create a salad filled with gummi worms, peeled grapes, and raisins. Serve with a description of where all the ingredients *really* came from.
Slimey worm soup: Chicken noodle soup with green or purple food coloring.
Casket Crunchies: Make homemade granola bars. Cut in slender rectangles. Cut off a very small diagonal section across the corners at one end, to keep that end broader. At the other end, make your corner cuts carry a little farther up the bar, about 1/3 of the way while still cutting off the corner. This creates an old fashioned coffin shape. Write R.I.P. with icing sugar. Crush leftovers and uses as topping on sundaes or cereal.
Spider Bites: Make no cook cookies from standard oatmeal, coconut and cocoa recipe. When dropping on waxed paper, insert short sections of thin licorice whip for legs, and tiny red candies for eyes.
Petrified Vegetation: Dry your own fruits in a dehydrator and make treat bags for passing out on Halloween.
Masticated Mice: Create oval shapes from a standard peanut butter ball recipe. Use pieces of almond slivers for ears, and thin strips from fruit roll up or licorice for whiskers. Rice Krispies or tiny round candies will make great eyes.
Worm Surprise: Bake an apple, then cut a hole in the side and insert a gummy worm.

Halloween: Fun Stuff!

Dress up to greet the trick or treaters. Kids love an adult with a sense of fun.
Greet trick or treaters dressed normally, with your candy dish in one hand and the other behind your back. Then bring the second hand around, wearing one of the more horrifying props like an Edward Scissor Hands glove, a hairy werewolf paw, or other appalling choice.
Turn off the lights before you open the door and hold a flashlight pointed upwards at your chin for a ghastly effect. Even better if you do your face with white make-up.
Serve a pasta for the Halloween dinner and dye it a horrifying shade with food coloring. Serve in costume and cackle with glee.
Make Halloween colored meals like dyed orange rice and black olives, squash scooped into a round ball with spider legs made from strips of licorice, or carrot and dark raisin salad.
Buy a Halloween shaped mold and create gruesome jello desserts with orange jello and black candies that are set in the shape.
Challenge your co-workers to wear a costume to work on the day, especially if you deal with the public. Ask the boss if they could provide prizes. Laughter is good for everyone.
When having a party for children or adults, get creative with your invitations and cut Halloween shapes from cardboard or Bristol board. Take them around yourself, or hire one of the children to deliver them in costume.
Create a scarecrow from old clothes and straw, and sit in your yard by the path or walk. On Halloween night, take the scarecrow apart, dress in the clothes, with the appropriate trimming like hay or straw, and sit in the chair to wait for callers. Be sure to use the same position as the scarecrow.
Get a witch’s kettle, fill partly with hot water and put dry ice in to create a fog. Set it where the trick or treaters can see the eerie effect, and then pretend to take their candy form inside the pot.
Create a giant spider web from commercial material that you buy, and hang it right behind where you will be handing out the candy. Use a large sheet of black Bristol board to cut out a giant spider shape and place in the center. Lower the lights and backlight the web.
Surf the net for scary Halloween trivia, then print out the best ones. Cut strips from the sheets and put a frightening fact in each treat bag.
Put a spooky voice message on your answering phone.
Draw or use stickers to create Halloween themed lunch bags for school.
Cut lunch sandwiches in Halloween shapes, by chilling the sandwich for 15 minutes in the freezer, then using a cookie cutter.
Borrow or buy a life-size skeleton to sit at your table for that Halloween dinner or party. You can also use him as an outdoor decoration. Be sure to move him around every day and change his props.
Dress up as a family and help out at your local retirement home.
Make a brain to offer your trick or treaters. Use a medium bowl for the mold, oil the inside, then cook spaghetti with food coloring. Fill bowl halfway with cold spaghetti and pour clear gelatin to just above the spaghetti. Turn out on a suitable platter.