Halloween is one of my favorite times of the year and while last year I focused on great make-up tips I learned in college, this year I’m going to show you short-cuts to save both time and money on creating a costume and a
party, from things you have at home, without the usual effort! You can use one or two ideas or if your kids and friends are willing to help, why not try them all? Tailor it down to your energy, illness level and interests!

First tip is, stay home. Small children usually don’t care what they do as long as they celebrate and older kids can have the party and invite all their friends making it memorable. You can have a type of costume theme like Star Wars or Disney Princess or just a general costume party. The general Halloween theme usually means less work and for the older crowd, more gore. Try an all zombies theme for something in the middle or a slasher prom night. Themes can be as general or as specific as you please. If kids must trick or treat, let them have a limited time, say half an hour to do only the local neighbors and then back for a party or else say that is it. Really small kids will not know the difference at all. Do not feel so pressured!
Have fun with it and let your kids help! Use bowls and food items to create a Gross Anatomy station, This is best kept in the kitchen. In bowls, maybe covered ones? Place things like a whole, peeled, canned
tomato for a heart, mushy scrambled eggs for brains, limp linguine mixed with shredded lasagna noodles for guts, peeled grapes for eyeballs, etc. Use your imagination. Decorate the table with a plastic covering of some kind and look online for tubes that come with blood and plastic body parts pre-mixed to lay out on the table. End by the
sink where guests can wash up for safety. (No one needs kids sick because they touched half cooked eggs left out all night!) Older kids can have fun setting this up all on their own. No work from you! Use tubes of blood to write messages on mirrors in bathrooms and fill the tub with a grizzled scene. Fill half way with water, use red food paste to blend in a good shade of bloody red, float a few body parts. or use COLD water and freeze body shapes, like hands in gloves and float them in there. You can find red soaps and cut them into shapes. Change light bulbs to purple or red. Never forget this room. Think about it: People go in here alone, it’s usually a small space and you can really creep it out without much trouble. (Do watch red food color and blood products around grout. IT will stain. If you manage to do it anyhow, use a bleach pen to try to get it out. Colored grout may be more of an issue.)
In the main areas, go “old schoo”l! Use toilet paper to wrap up objects to look mummified, like lamp posts, just watch out for fire hazards! Put odds and ends all creepified out. If your kids have large, I mean LARGE, stuffed animals, make them look like a stoic figure sitting in a corner of the room. Change light bulbs to colored ones. Take old bed sheets, out grown t-shirts, etc and dye with a mixture of strongly brewed tea, white vinegar and hot water. Do not launder, just wring out and dry. Distress it with scissors and knives, old nails, etc. Just be careful! This is definitely an adult task. Let kids hang them up around. Bloody the clothing, leaving several days for drying with a commercial blood product. Tack to walls, over window treatments, etc. Lay out bowls of snacks interspersed for milling and throw on a CD of scary Halloween tracks. (Look online or make some of your own. It may prove a fun project for your kids!) Carve a few pumpkins if you have the energy and use them for lights throughout, again being careful of traffic patterns and fire hazards. (For younger kids, use only battery operated lights.)
Party Food! Now most of the time, this will not matter as long as you made something good. Go to a wholesale club or your supermarket and grab big boxes of soft pretzels, jalapeno poppers, cookie dough, chips and dips, sodas, mini pizzas, etc. Use your microwave and oven and voila, insta-party. For those wanting to do more or who have friends and kids helping, get creative. Use food dyes to make the pre-made foods snazzier, like red dye in the dips and red cake gels over the cookies to look drizzled in blood. Want more? Mix lemon-lime soda, orange soda, grape soda, a jar of stemmed and pitted maraschino cherries and their juice, scoops of sherbet and serve it up as witch’s brew. Use packaged bread stick dough to make fingers, by cutting in half and using sliced almonds for fingertips. Feel free to “paint “ the nails with straight red food paste dye. Take meatballs and stuff with a pitted olive or a piece of milk soaked bread painted with food dye to look like eye balls. (Best to do painting AFTER baking. Do not boil these.) Cut sandwiches with cookie cutters to form stars, crescent moons, cats, etc. Use hot dogs and wrap in mummy wraps, such as biscuit dough topped with thin shaved ham and them baked. Paint with
ketchup and mustard for details. The ham will give a shabby texture if you rip pieces over it. A brush with olive oil doesn’t hurt either! Look at what you eat everyday and make it jazzed up! Try some pieces of eyeball meatballs, carrot fingers, etc. and use a fondue to create a white cheese sauce, which you can dye green and put black dots on top for a rotting fondue. Make a white chocolate one and do similar coloring effects with fruit. Bake a pizza with spinach and call it a rotted masterpiece. Have fun with it! Use as much store-bought as you can and do simple jazzing to add the razzle-dazzle to the food. You take all the credit! Aren’t you looking smart!
Costumes are very easy. Let’s also mention that used costumes from Salvation Army are ALWAYS a good bet and using clothing you already have to add pieces to are easy as well. Wrapping a kid in foil and adding a store bought astronaut’s helmet is as fun to get into as it is to wear. Use silver duct tape to hold bendy parts together. Add wings to a pretty dress and a wand to turn a girl into a fairy! Add glitter make-up and she has all the best parts! Have a helmet of some kind lying around? Get colored tape to draw up badge and decorations, cut out and stick to clothing. Use this for policemen, race car driver outfits, etc. Sometimes they have scrubs or
chef’s clothing from a kitchen gift or for dress-up. Capitalize! Check the dollar store! I just went in mine and found
professional grade latex pieces. You can buy spirit gum and removers online at Amazon.com or BenNye.com, which I highly recommend. Look in Salvation Army for old wedding gowns, prom dresses, and suits to rip up
and bloody for corpse looks or even way out of date vintage clothing to set a corpse’s time period. Utilize old gloves you can rip and bloody for hands, old shoes you can scuff up and rub dirt on, etc. This is grizzly fun and it shouldn’t be skimped on! For younger kids who want something less sinister, dresses can be used for most of their
wishes, including old flower girl dresses for a bridal look, boys can find toy helmets and overalls you can paint up to look like uniforms. Who can forget the old sheets used as ghosts, just make sure they have proper eye holes! A lot of used clothing that you don’t want to paint, can be made up with fusible felt shapes from your local craft store. My girlfriend once came to our Halloween party as a Lego. She realized she had a red sweatshirt and leggings, so she painted a red cardboard box she could fit in, cut out head and arm holes and glued on large red plastic drink cups for the plug parts. She was awesome! Ask kids to get creative and let them help construct! Be a bag of groceries, wear all black and use a few paper bags to make something you can step into. Glue on cheap dollar store fruit and empty containers and go shopping for some fun! A gypsy look is fun with a black bodysuit and lots of scarves you can safety pin on. Look for some gold trims or even just cheap plastic flat gold medallion bangles you can clip on. Old jewelry chains, etc. costumes don’t have to be extravagant. ALSO, think about if they are walking, can they be visible? Can they see clearly through anything on their face? Is the environment going to
have lots of open candles you want to modify the costume for? Go hog wild once you figure out the safety concerns. The important part is to have fun.
This holiday has no religious affiliations; it’s not anything we can’t
all find a way to enjoy. It can be as fun or as macabre as you make it and it’s a way to let off some steam before we head into the major holiday seasons for most people. It also, doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg unless you need those for decorations!!) Think outside the commercial bought spider-webbing and see what you come up with. Be one with your inner child and let loose! Remember Rome was not built in a day and your party doesn’t’ have to be made in an hour. Take a full week or two to start making and putting these things into play and if
your kids want it, make sure they pitch in!
Do you have a favorite easy idea or food recipe? Share it with us below in the comments section! We can always do with more ideas!! HAVE FUN!

© 2008 by Jennifer Altherr, Butyoudontlooksick.com