View video: Haunted Halloween party for kids & adults » 
Host a Happy Halloween Party at your own haunted house, for both kids
and grown-ups. Make it creepy or kooky, cover up in a costume, and keep
the treats and tricks coming! 
Eerie Invitations
To invite your ghoulish guests, send out "pumpkin pal" invitations.
Blow up orange balloons and write party details on them with
glow-in-the-dark pens. Then, deflate the balloons and mail them to
guests with instructions to inflate the balloons in a dark room to read
the message. Add plastic spiders and other creepy crawlers in the
envelope to make the invite extra spooky.
Boo-tiful Decorations
Turn your humble home into a haunted house:
- Create a "boo-tiful" party setting by stretching cobwebs with
rubber spiders over the doors and party tables. Make the atmosphere even
more frightening with a fog machine and scary music.
- You can also scare up a few ghosts by inflating white helium
balloons and adding ghost faces and white crepe paper streamers. Then
let the spooky ghosts float around the room.
Ghoulish Games and Activities
Party activities are a great way for kids and adults to have fun together:
- One idea is to create Pumpkinheads. Give each guest an inflated
orange balloon and a permanent marker. Place guest's names in a hat, and
have everyone secretly select a name and then draw that person's face
on a balloon. Then, let everyone try to match the Pumpkinhead to the
guest.
- Hold a trick or treat treasure hunt by hiding creepy items like
plastic spiders, gummy teeth, and slimy eyeballs throughout the party
room. Break into teams and search for the ghoulish goodies.
Frightening Refreshments
- Get creative - and creepy - by adding a floating green "hand" to
your punch. To make the hand, freeze green tinted water in a rubber
glove, then run the hand under warm water and peel back the glove and
place the ice hand in punch.
- You can also make worm-filled ice cubes by freezing water and gummy worms in ice trays.
- Finally, set out "body parts" as appetizers or snacks, such as
Vienna sausages for fingers, deviled egg for eyeballs, and tiny white
mints for teeth.
Frightening Favors
When the party ends, send guests home with ghoulish goodies such as
glow sticks, vampire teeth, gummy worms, stage makeup kits and mini
pumpkins. Let them select Halloween tricks and treats from a treasure
chest and take home their booty as favor.
Penny Warner has more than 25 years of experience as an author
and party planner. She has published more than 50 books, including 16
specific to parties. Additionally, Warner writes a weekly newspaper
column on family life, penned a column for Sesame Street Parents
magazine and has appeared on several regional and national TV morning
programs. Her latest book, HOW TO HOST A KILLER PARTY, debuted in
February 2010 from NAL/Penguin.
Balloon Time is the leading brand of consumer helium balloon kits
in North America. Balloon Time kits feature a helium-filled tank, latex
or foil balloons and ribbon, and are available at national retail
chains, party goods and grocery stores nationwide.