How to Make a Halloween Costume, right here on our site!

The MSNBC Today show page has ideas for six cute Halloween costumes, including cat burglar, cheerleader, cotton candy, football player, conductor, and zookeeper!

Quick and Simple highlights 16 different easy to make Halloween costumes, including Clark Kent, Kandy Korn, a bag of Jelly Beans, Poodle, and many more!

The Kansas.com website has some money-saving tips for making costumes. No actual costumes here, but some great tips!

Kids’ Turn Central has the biggest list of kids’ Halloween costume ideas I’ve ever seen! Check these out.

The FunTimesGuide.com has dozens of Halloween costume ideas, and nearly a dozen links to easy-to-make kids’ costumes!

Maureen Carter on DIY Life has some of the coolest, no-sew Halloween costumes around. Check out the crocodile head!

On Suite 101, Elizabeth Bastos covers some of the traditional DIY Halloween costumes for the wee little ones.

Find dozens of cool Halloween costume ideas at Disney’s Family Fun Go site. Great pictures too!

Five simple and traditional Halloween costume ideas, including one of my all-time favorites, Hobo, are described at Associated Content.

And don’t forget about creating a cool haunted house for Halloween! Here are some tips from our own Create the Coolest Haunted Halloween House of the Neighborhood!

And lastly, don’t forget to download our FREE Halloween Cupcake Ideas Guide PDF!

By October 31st the dark nights are getting longer and cooler, and it’s easier to imagine another world of Halloween spirits, walking dead, werewolves, vampires and hobgoblins. You may be one of the many hosts planning to invite your friends dressed as these strange creatures into your home that evening for a Halloween costume party.

Perhaps you will be arranging a Halloween costume party this year, and thinking about good Halloween ideas.

First, think who your guests will be. Your whole approach will be different for children or adults. A children’s party will be earlier, and the entertainment and decorations less frightening. It helps to have a kids party checklist. Adults will expect different music, food and drinks, and party for longer.

Once you have your guest list, and have chosen a suitable date, time and place, you are ready to prepare your Halloween theme invitations. This is a fun thing to do. Part of the attraction of Halloween is the variety of ghostly themes. Your invitation should be novel, colorful and scary, but be sensitive about doing things like including imitation body parts to fall out of the envelope. Not everyone will see that as a joke. You should tell your guests if they are expected to wear Halloween costumes. Don’t forget to include a request for confirmation so you know how many guests to cater for.

Halloween decorations inside and out can take time to set up but make the evening more memorable. A cemetery scene with tombstones is a great idea, with subdued lighting, images of ghosts and ghouls, hairy spiders and their webs, sound effects and perhaps even a fog machine. Halloween is about Jack-o-lanterns made out of pumpkins with a candle inside. You will need to make quite a few, in different sizes, to help set the atmosphere.

With all that pumpkin flesh left over from carving your pumpkins, your party menu might include pumpkin soup and pumpkin pie. Halloween themes have their place in your choice of food to serve. However, following the horror theme and going overboard with Halloween decorations when laying out your table can detract from the pleasure and fun your guests will have at your party. Instead focus on food with a Halloween theme to make for a memorable party.

You will need to decide whether you will be serving a full dinner or just finger food. A sit down dinner or a buffet? The meal can be a good time to distribute party favors, especially if your party bag includes jokes, games or other things that will stimulate conversation.

Whether to buy, hire or make your Halloween costumes needs to be planned well in advance. Inviting your guests to wear costumes is a great way to get your guests into a party mood, to get conversations started and to get people laughing, but you need to tell them early enough. Going a step further and having your guest wear masks is a traditional way of making your guests less self conscious, and to quickly break the ice. It helps if you can learn how to face paint especially to make up children with Halloween face painting designs.

Halloween music and sound effects should be used to help set the atmosphere as part of the party entertainment, but at some point your older guests will likely want to dance to the latest hits. Making up a compilation of music specially for the evening on your computer can be fun. You might like to show short or full horror movies in the entertainment.

Party games and spooky Halloween themed entertainment adds to the good times. A good organizer and some prizes help to get everyone participating.

Unlike some other products where quality may not make an obvious difference, the differences between cheap and quality glowsticks are significant. The issue with cheap glow sticks is that they are either duds, meaning they don’t activate, or they glow for a much shorter time than they should. There are many causes for the quality issues. Two main ones are the most common. One of the reasons is when cheap glowsticks were made, the manufacturers did not use the correct type of chemicals. Second reason is that the cheap glow necklaces for sale may have only a very short period of shelf life time left, e.g. 1-2 months. If kept and stored properly, glow sticks should have a shelf life of 2 years.Shelf life for glow bracelets and glow necklaces is typically one year if stored properly at a dry cool place. 

In summary, cheap glow sticks or cheap glow necklaces simply won’t do the job unfortunately and will achieve nothing but a waste of money and time. Before commiting to any purchases next time, make sure the quality of glow sticks and glow necklaces are there so that everyone can enjoy the products!

The food should be filling and easy to handle, in small portions for small hands. Hot dogs are always a hit, with the right condiments and some crisps or french fries on the side. Pizza is also a firm favorite around kids, although you may need to get a few different kinds to cater to different tastes. Some children may be dairy resistant, or not able to eat certain meats. The safe rule is to have two kinds of foods just in case one of the kinds is not eaten by children. This could be chicken wings or drumsticks, hamburgers and also pizza and hot dogs.

Having a table laden with finger foods and snacks is also a surefire way to keep everyone fed and happy. Most children, enjoying themselves in the festivities, will not be keen on sitting down to a proper meal. Instead, offer the food in buffet style on the table and they will be content. Some good light meals and snacks include sausage rolls, meatballs, chicken drumsticks, mini hot dogs and hamburgers. Some interesting finger food ideas are sticks of cheese and even fresh fruit arranged in an attractive manner.

One of the most anticipated parts of the party will be the cake and sweets. Naturally you will want to give the children the more nourishing food, so after you have laid out the snacks and finger foods, then you can display the cake and desserts. Cupcakes are always a popular party choice as they are smaller and more likely to be eaten completely. Bowls filled with sweets, chips and marshmallows are always a party staple. If the party is during the warmer months, and you want to serve ice-cream, be sure to offer chocolate, strawberry and vanilla too to cater for different tastes.

If you have any rented entertainment at the birthday party, such as a jumping castle, you will need to ensure that no one eats while using it. Most jumping castles companies will not be impressed if they collect a soiled castle.

So between assorted colors (or single colors) and tri-color glow necklaces, which ones are the most bright? Their brightess is very close to each other. Looking at how manufactureres make tri-color glow necklaces or glow bracelets will help determine if the tri-colors are brighter than the assorted ones. Materials like cottons have been used to separate the different colors from mixing up on tri-color glow necklaces. Because the cottons don’t glow, there will be (2) dots on the tri-color glow necklaces. For assorted ones, they are no color stops or separations. They are one continuous glow. Based on that, glow necklaces in assorted color are a little bit brighter than the three colored ones. For glow bracelets, it’s the same, assorted ones are brighter.

Another popular product are glow earrings. They bring out fun and excitement to all sorts of glow in the dark parties. Glow earrings come in (2) sets in a pair. Wearing matching color products such as will bring out even more fun.

Make your next summer party glow with glow earrings, glow necklaces and glow bracelets!

Organizing a Kid's Birthday Party

It’s going to be your child’s birthday soon! As the day approaches, you find yourself searching for ways to make the celebration extra special, more than your child had in his previous birthdays. But you know that you are not the expert in organizing a birthday party, you always see yourself going back to zero and start with the planning stage all over again.

It’s good to know that planning a birthday party is not that hard, I give you some some help to make the birthday bash as wonderful and memorable the way you wanted it to be.

Start with Brainstorming
You may want to do some brainstorming to come up with some ideas for the birthday party. It will be good to do it with your children. What if you are organizing the party for the very first time? What you need to do is, get ideas and inspirations from other family members and friends. Asking others for ideas could help make your planning faster and more fool-proof. Remember, planning a birthday party for your child requires not only one idea from one person but a group effort devised by people involved in the planning and brainstorming stage.

Provide a Checklist
If you plan a birthday party for your child, party supplies are major consideration. From the birthday cake, foods, drinks, venue, number of guests; all these must be featured in your checklist. To make everything well planned and organized, jotting these down to a notebook will help. If you plan for an event, taking note of the nitty-gritty will play a huge role in your planning stage. At this stage you will need to weigh things carefully. If you are aiming for a particular cake for the party, compare the prices and put that in your checklist. This will facilitate in coming up with an almost perfect checklist, listing the particulars in your kid’s party. Checklist is very important because it will stop you from missing out a detail which can spolit the party.

Sending Out The Invites
The party will not be complete without invitations for the guests. If you’re holding a kid’s party, most of the time you will have guests who are the same age as your birthday child, including siblings who may turn up too. With this, always plan it as 1 + 1 invitation: one child will come with one parent. Make sure that you should send the cards at least 14 days before the party. The rationale is that this will allow the invited guests to keep that calendar slot booked for your kids party.

The Actual Day Just when you thought the organizing stage is through the moment the party is being held, it doesn’t. The actual party will be the realization of your program. Organizing a birthday party means to be in control of the entire event until it comes to an end, making sure that everything that is planned is well delivered and put into action.

Organizing a birthday party is not easy, however all your effort and planning should be worthwhile when you see your child gleam with joy.

It’s good to know that planning a birthday party is not that hard, here are some tips to make the birthday party as wonderful and memorable the way you wanted it to be.

Start with Brainstorming
You may want to do some brainstorming to come up with some ideas for the birthday party. It will be good to do it with your children. What if you are organizing the party for the very first time? What you need to do is, ideas from other family members, friends and relatives would certainly matter. You can begin asking for their ideas and inputs in making everything as organize as possible. Keep in mind, planning a birthday party for your child requires not only one idea from one person but a group effort devised by people involved in the organizing and brainstorming stage.

Create a Checklist
If you plan a birthday party for your child, party supplies are major consideration. From the cake, foods, refreshments, venue, number of people; they must be included in your checklist. To make everything well planned and organized, jotting these down to a notebook will help. If you plan for an event, writing down the details will play a huge role in your initial stage. This is also the time where you can weigh things carefully. If you are aiming for a particular cake for the party, compare the prices and put that in your checklist. This will help you in creating a well thought out details in your child’s party. Lastly, if you don’t want to miss a single detail for the big day, providing a checklist will contribute a big difference.

Sending Out The Invitation Cards
The next important thing to look at is the guests invitation. If you’re holding a child’s party, guests mostly involve little children the same age as your child accompanied by their parents or guardians. Keep this in mind, you need to count in the number of people that will accompany a child in the party. Take note that you must give the invitation at least 14 days before the party, ideally at least one month ahead. This will give guests the time to arrange their schedules and join your child’s birthday bash.

It’s Party Time!
Planning doesn’t stop at the actual day of the party. The actual party will be the realization of your plans. Organizing a birthday party means to be in control of the entire event until it comes to an end, do not panick if anything goes wrong. If you have planned for contingencies you shouldn’t worry too much.

Organizing a birthday party is not smooth-sailing, however all the efforts and planning will be worth the effort when you see your child gleam with joy.

One of the first things you will consider when you are throwing a children’s party is which theme would suit the child’s taste best. Certain themes can cost a lot of money, but there are more affordable ways to throw a successful theme party.

Instead of buying party supplies, there are many things that you can make yourself. You can create a lovely banner off the internet using your computer and printer. There are many websites on the internet where you can find printable banners that you can even personalise. It will look attractive and professional and you will be able to find banners matching your theme all over the internet! Another way to make use of the internet is to print invitations online. There are plenty of sites online offering free printable invitations in a variety of different styles and themes.

If you are going to rent a jumping castle, most children will be thrilled by this, and it will not matter whether it is in keeping with a theme or not. Jumping castles are a fantastic way of keeping the children entertained for hours during a party.

You can make most of the eats yourself, even if you are not a good baker. There are many ready-made cake mixes available for you to choose from. There are many cute decorations you can buy to decorate the cake with and will show the effort put into the creation. There are many children’s magazines and websites that will show you the easy way of creating a masterpiece, animal or any other shape you like out of two simple sponge cakes or spring rolls. Cupcakes are the easiest things to make, and so are biscuits. The child whose party it is may even enjoy being involved in the cooking and baking process. You can get him / her and their friends to help you ice and decorate the cake and cupcakes. This will make them feel even more involved and proud on their birthday party day.

There are many affordable stores that sell party favors, streamers, party hats, balloons and other necessaries. They may not be the best quality, and could only last the party day, but will at least be fun and attractive. Remember, the party is not about how much money you spend, it is about showing your child that you love them. Children have fun in the easiest and most basic ways, so all your simple efforts will be appreciated. There are also many companies that rent out jumping castles for reasonable prices.

birthday party supply

Adults can throw a murder mystery dinner party or wine tasting party, while kids love to indulge in a theme party. Regardless of your choice, all-in-one kits are a great way to jumpstart your birthday party supply ideas and shopping list.

An easy solution to your birthday party supply woes will sometimes come in boxed format, like when hosting an adult murder mystery dinner party. For example, Bepuzzled’s popular “Murder A La Cart” kits come with: a party planning guide filled with recipes, decor, costume and music tips, eight invitations, character booklets, a CD and six secret clues for $16 in a variety of themes. Decipher.com is another highly-ranked murder mystery kit creator with titles like: the good the bad and the guilty, an affair to dismember, the Chicago caper and Roman ruins for $32 regular price. Host-a-murder.com has murder mysteries focused on pop-culture such as: Project Runway, Survivor, CSI, James Bond, Harry Potter and Donald Trump, available for $8/guest. Note that many murder mystery parties can accommodate groups of up to 100, with downloadable materials now as well.

Get out the wine, cheese, fondue, bread, pretzels, chocolate and olives! It’s wine party time! At Imageproducts.com, Swillparty.com or Wine.com, you can purchase an all-in-one kit (for $25-45) that will give you name tags, game pieces, a party planning guide, invitations, bottle bags and information guides for your guests. You can choose an additional theme, such as a jazz theme for decorative birthday party supply options or you could just stick with the wine theme. You’ll only have to select five or six wines and prepare some quick food for this party. Remember that music adds ambiance too!

Kids parties can be a breeze with all-in-one birthday party supply options. Be aware that each site discussed here has multiple party theme options and come in sets of eight. For instance, if you want to throw a Spiderman theme party, check Birthdayzbyshindigz.com for a $52.99 package that provides a party of 8 with: invitations, plates, napkins, cups, silverware, balloons, ribbons, tablecloth, birthday candles, a pinata, a mylar balloon, centerpiece and streamers. You can get a Birthdayinabox.com safari theme with: dinner and cake plates, cups, silverware, balloons, candles, napkins, banners, tablecloths and centerpieces for $41.

At Castleadventuresawait.com, a $150 Cowboy Party offers: a two hour food and decorations planning guide, invitations, Western partyware, cowboy/cowgirl hats, sheriff badges, three foot inflatable horse, horse toys and Western theme coloring pages. Similarly, if you want to throw “the ultimate fairytale party,” Celebrateexpress.com will provide your party with: invitations, partyware plates, cups and silverware, ribbon, candles, confetti, pinata with filler, wall decorations, cake toppers, party favor boxes and fillers, a unicorn beanie baby, goblets, stickers, hats, mylar balloons, thank-you notes and more for $150. A creative addition is activity kits from Birthdaydirect.com for low prices, like: scrapbook making, Spiderman magnet making, Camo tank making, clown makeup, Disney’s Cars picture frame making and flip-flop visor kits.

We can sometimes spend a fortune on birthday party supply items, which is why an all-in-one kit can be a big help. You’ll receive food and drink recommendations in some cases or all the decorations and party favors you’ll need in other cases. Either way, you’ll be glad you didn’t have to spend so much time gathering information on your own.

Planning ahead when organizing a kids birthday party will help alleviate a lot of stress. Here are some tips for you to organize simple, yet successful birthday parties for kids

1. Determine the theme. The party theme will have some bearing on the age of the child. For one year olds, it is best to have a theme that everyone can relate to. In short, you can come up with a general theme such as your kid’s favorite character or TV show and the like. For older kids, you can ask them what they want for their party. If they have not decided yet, suggest kiddie themes such as Harry Potter theme, Pirates theme or Cowboys’ theme for the boys. For the girls, you can suggest Fairy theme or Princess theme. Once you were able to come up with the theme, the rest of the steps will follow.

2. Estimate how many adults and kids that will be on your guest list. This is the next best thing to do after the theme. You can start with the immediate family members, cousins, uncles and aunties, grandparents, god parents. Then, the friends of your child in the neighborhood and his or her classmates if he or she is already in school. Knowing how many people will be attending will give you an idea how big the party that you need to prepare is and how large the place needs to be to hold the party.

3. Find a fitting venue. For some parents, their home is the most fitting venue for small parties. But if there will be bunches of guests, it is best to find a location where everybody can move freely. You can consider the nearby theme park or a playhouse inside a mall for the location. In choosing your location, be especially aware of a kid friendly enviroment.

4. Set the time. Most birthday parties are usually set in the afternoon when everybody has rested. But, depending on the availability of your guests as well as of the venue, you can schedule it earlier, like before lunchtime or during lunch itself.

5. Do the invitation and send it in advance. You can create your own invitations that has the brand of the theme or you can buy ready made ones from craft stores. Some venues, such as the pizza theme parks, will provide you with invitations as part of their party packs. Birthdayinabox.com is a good choice for getting all the invitations, partyware, toys and other do-dads with the most popular kids theme all in one package. The most important thing is that you have sent the invitation out early so they the parents of the attendees can arrange their schedules.

6. Call the parents of the kids that are to be invited. This is also one good way of knowing how many attendees will be there and if there are necessary preparations for the child guest,  especially ask about food allergies.

7. Make a list of the foods you can prepare. Depending on the number of guests, you can make a tentative list of the foods to be prepared. In the menu, make sure to make the selections children-friendly. Finger foods, fruit and vegetable trays can be purchased at your grocery store or a Sam’s Club to save you time on preparations.

8. Make a list of supplies and decorations needed. This is also important so you won’t have to cram when the day comes. Ordering prepared party packages on-line can save you time and some times money because you don’t have to drive all over time to find enough of the same matching theme items.  If possible, decorate the venue a day ahead so you won’t have to worry about it when the date comes.

9. Create a flow chart of the program. Young attendees during kids birthday parties can be unruly. To maintain order, it helps to come up with a program so everyone will know what to do.

10. For more tips on children’s birthday parties and for theme ideas and party supplies, visit BirthdayPartyDepot.com