# How was your party? Mine turned out...



## Howlyn (Sep 28, 2004)

to be one of the best ever! We had a good turnout (around 50 people)and they ALL were in costume for a change. (Usually most do get in costume, but there's always a few who don't dress up each year.) There were so many really good costumes too, so that makes it really fun. I'm glad we had ballots to decide on best costumes...because I sure couldn't have picked! 

The most creative costumes were a couple who came as Siamese Twins (they won that catagory)and a guy who made his whole costume out of duct tape. He looked like a moon man. He had his face covered and everything. He wouldn't tell us who he was for about the first 1/2 hour that he was there. Another couple dressed as Thing 1 & Thing 2. They were cute and won best couple. We had Wacko Jacko, show up with "his boy toy". She actually looked a little like Michael, that it was scary. The most hilarious was a guy in a blow up ballerina costume. He walked in with a huge layer cake and announced that it was all for him and he wasn't sharing it! He looked especially funny when he danced! Another couple showed up as Gene Simmons & Paul Stanley they had really nice costumes that she made. They probably would have won something, but came after the costume contest.

We had so much food that it was crazy! We always make a big variety and then most people bring something to add. Despite the big crowd we have a LOT of leftovers! Too many munchies in the house = me gaining weight! Oh well!

This year all the hard work was definately worth it! We had so many nice compliments about our decorations and props...many of the ideas I found here...so, *Thank You! *to all the nice people here who are so creative and willing to share ideas!!!

I'll be posting some photos as soon as I can.

So...how was your party?

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Dr. Frederick Van Frankenstein – "That's FRONK-en-steen!": "You know, I don't mean to embarrass you, but I'm, ah, rather brilliant surgeon. Perhaps I could help you with that hump."

Igor: "What hump?"


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## sisvicki (Jan 30, 2004)

Congratulations Howlyn! Glad your party turned out so well. Can't wait to see the pics.

HHH


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## ccscastle (Oct 5, 2004)

I am glad yours turned out well too. 

I had expected many more but I had lots of calls at the end of the night of why people weren't coming. I had lots of extra money to give away so we had to add a few other impromptu games. I didn't get pics of my winners. I don't know what I was thinking. I guess things just get so busy. 

I thought even though not all showed. It was a blast. Everyone is talking about next year. I think I gave the bug to my older sister. She says she is going to have a Halloween Party next year too. It should be very interesting what she comes up with... It will probably be cutesy since she is scared of ghouls..lol. 

I think next year I will create a theme for myself to go by but not ask everyone to dress in a theme. It was too difficult for people. Lots of people wanted to rebel and some did..lol. I just thought since I didn't have anyone that had been to a Halloween Party or wasn't into that stuff it would be easier for them to know what to wear. I guess I was wrong. lol. Well live and learn. 

hugs CC


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## Howlyn (Sep 28, 2004)

> quote:I had expected many more but I had lots of calls at the end of the night of why people weren't coming.


I'm sorry that happened to you CC, but glad you still had a great time. One year we were expecting about 40 or so and only 10 people showed up. [:0] That was a bummer. We still had a good time, but when you go through so much effort it is kind of disappointing. Especially when people tell you they are coming and don't end up not showing up.

What kind of games did you play? I had wanted to play a few games this year but hubby thought no one would be into it or that it would be too difficult with a large crowd all coming in at various times. I too decided against it for the last reason. A few groups played cards and everyone was into voting for the best costumes but other than that no games. I wanted to try the Killer game that someone here talked about. Or the name on the back where you have to guess what you are. Maybe next year...

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Dr. Frederick Van Frankenstein – "That's FRONK-en-steen!": "You know, I don't mean to embarrass you, but I'm, ah, rather brilliant surgeon. Perhaps I could help you with that hump."

Igor: "What hump?"


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## sisvicki (Jan 30, 2004)

I get the same thing - about the guests not showing. It's funny, but some people RSVP'd and didn't show and others that didn't RSVP did show! It is very disappointing when your guests don't show and you've put in so much effort. We invited more folks this year than last but had about the same turn out. Everyone had a good time, but it wasn't like last year. I think the novelty of last year can't be beat.

We did play games and my guests look forward to those. I start with splitting everyone in teams and doing a team game (that kinda gets them mingling with people they might not otherwise really talk to), then we play my 'trick or treat' game. Everyone is a real good sport about that.

Our party (adults only) was the Saturday before Halloween. I left up my decor all week and my teenage boy had a small group of friends over the Friday before Halloween. It was so gratifying to hear those kids scream and sqeal over my mini walk thru in the garage that I'm thinking about forgoing the adult party next year and just doing a walk thru for kids. I'll probably change my mind a million times before then, but I really need to change up the format of my party or go to an every other year or something. I don't want it to turn it into the same thing year after year and pretty soon the guests are dwindling to a handful. and yawning.

HHH


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## drunk_buzzard (Sep 9, 2003)

We had less show up than expected as well. But I didn't dwell on it - since the people that did come had a great time! I planned several games but left the later evening free for whatever people wanted, so as to not make them think they have to "do" something constantly. So after the last game, all I hear is "what's next?". So next year I'll have even more games ready to go!

Pain has a face... Allow me to show it to you
http://users.1010internet.com/christopherg


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## Vikeman (Oct 17, 2003)

Glad to see everyone's party went well. We had 50 people at our party this year. Great turnout and some great costumes. We only had 3 people that didn't dress up. The games went well. Everyone played and we got some very creative answers on the trivia game. The weather was awesome! Temp was around 65 at party time. It was windy, so fogger was useless. We got lots of compliments on the decor. Everyone liked the bathroom. It was a last minute change. Went with the dungeon theme. We had a skeleton chained to the wall above the tub. A flicker skull on the wall. Rats and webs around. Then the big surprise. The closet was left slightly opened. We had a red light on and scary sounds coming from within. When the door was opened a blue light when off. Hanging there was a vampire prop we got at Spencers for 1/2 price. It scared quite a few people and worked great all night. I'll post some pics in the next few days.

_________________________

Vampires, Mummies and the Holy Ghost- Jimmy Buffett

http://halloweengallery.com/index.php?cat=10028


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## Howlyn (Sep 28, 2004)

Glad to hear everybodys partys went well! I think we'll have to do a few games next year. 

Your bathroom decor sounded cool Vikeman.

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Dr. Frederick Van Frankenstein – "That's FRONK-en-steen!": "You know, I don't mean to embarrass you, but I'm, ah, rather brilliant surgeon. Perhaps I could help you with that hump."

Igor: "What hump?"


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## Annea (Aug 14, 2004)

I would like to thank you all for the great recipes, advice and support I have received from this forum. The party went well, all the rum puch went and those frozen jello shots had a hard job getting out of bed the next day. Thanks all

Those who feel they are touched by madness, sit down next to me.
Annea


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## lovingcupgirl (Nov 6, 2004)

Hey folks,
I'm glad so many parties were a success! Vikeman, I was totally at a loss with the bathroom, what great ideas, I'm definitely going to have to do some of that next year. A few things I learned from my first party, I'm sure most of you already know this stuff, being repeat offenders and all, but for new people like me, this would have been helpful to hear ahead of time.

1. as cool as "dusk" sounds on a party invite, it just doesn't work. People interprete it differently, and you end up with people arriving while you're still setting up, which makes (me at least) for a frantic rush at the end.

2. A haunted trail is a great idea, people love it, but be sure you do it close enough to the house run power, or rent a generator. 300 ft of extension cord reached out to the trail, barely, and I didn't have more to run to each installment from there. Thus my vampire crypt got EXCELLENT light (see pics), the rest got jipped, including the graveyard, where I counted on moonlight, and got clouds... http://www.people.umass.edu/aes1/halloween04.htm

3. Lighting is so key. Even in rooms with minimal decorations, you can really alter the feeling by changing the lights to red, purple, orange, etc. Party bulbs are cheap, and go a long way to this effect. 

4. Check all your lighting ahead of time. At show time, some of my orange christmas lights didn't work, and the black light science lab and portal to hell were SO black lit, I ran into a support pole for the house, and hit my head really hard. I'm glad it happened to me, how awful if it happened to a guest! I wrapped the poles in white tissue to prevent it from happening again, but I didn't think of it ahead of time b/c we didn't do a trial run.

5. Make sure your music is selected ahead of time, and ready to go. Drunk people should NOT be djs, no one needs to hear "Dancing Queen" over and over and over again!

6. Consider having scheduled "checkers" of your various haunts and effects. I tried to do it all myself, while playing hostess, and didn't always get to things in time to refill fog machines, change batteries in flying bats, hit "play" on expired sound effect cds, and generally check on installments to be sure everything is how it should be. It's too much for one person if you have multiple set ups.

7. Definitely have a scare crew to hide and scare people, and take turns so no one misses out on the whole party. Even MORE fun is the random guy in a Friday the 13th mask periodically running amok through the party. A sweatshirt over his costume, and the mask, everyone thought it was some random person, a stranger from the street, not actually a party attendee, people were actually freaked out!

8. Interactive stuff isn't just for kids! People LOVED playing with the glowing clay in my lab, and we had a print making installation in the spider lair, and people did some really nice notes on card stock along with their prints, thanking us for the party. They make nice additions to a photo album, and if you use black light sensitive paint under a black light, they really add to the decor of the room as well.

That's it I think, I don't mean to imply that things went badly, b/c they definitely didn't, people actually said "best party ever". Does it get any better than that?!!
Thanks for reading, I'm off to start planning next year!
~Aly E.


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## lovingcupgirl (Nov 6, 2004)

bad link, sorry!
http://www.people.umass.edu/aes1/halloween04.html


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## LHALLOW (Aug 10, 2004)

lovingcupgrl,

Those are great tips!! I thought the "dusk" one was great. I could just imagine everyone getting that one all messed up! But it looks and sounds great on an invitation!









"Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!" http://photos.yahoo.com/lhallow


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## Howlyn (Sep 28, 2004)

Loving Cup Girl: I made the same "dusk" mistake on our first few party invites. I don't remember getting a lot of people show up early, but I do remember people asking what time??? lol 

I'm interested in hearing more about this:



> quote:we had a print making installation in the spider lair, and people did some really nice notes on card stock along with their prints, thanking us for the party. They make nice additions to a photo album, and if you use black light sensitive paint under a black light, they really add to the decor of the room as well.


That sounds like a cool activity. I do a lot of scrapbooking and am working on putting 16 years worth of Halloween party photos into a book. That would be a cool addition to have party goers make comments to add to the book. 

I finally finished with my website, so if you want to check out the costumes, decorations, etc... here's the address:

http://home.earthlink.net/~mlcdweiss/id1.html

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Howling in shadows
Living in a lunar spell
He finds his heaven
Spewing from the mouth of hell

And when he finds who he's looking for
Listen in awe and you'll hear him...

Bark at the moon.


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## Vikeman (Oct 17, 2003)

lovingcupgirl, Looks like your party was a huge success! I really liked the pictures. You've also added some great tips. This was our third party and we're still learning things to do or not to do. The music is a good one to get straight before the party. This year I had a couple friends make me some cds and we just put the player on random. Later in the night we switched and played some dance cds. I usually give people a certain time the party will start but you always have some that will show up early. Next year we are going to get in costume first, then worry about last minute details. All in all everything went pretty smooth. A few things weren't turned on, but that's the way it goes. Good idea about having people lined up to check some of your effects. Usually to much going on for one person.

_________________________

Vampires, Mummies and the Holy Ghost- Jimmy Buffett

http://halloweengallery.com/index.php?cat=10028


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## lovingcupgirl (Nov 6, 2004)

I'm glad you guys found my tips helpful. The dusk thing worked SO well b/c of the invitations, they had this cool "nightmare before christmas" feel to them, a black silhouette of a tree and cemetery gate with a sunset color gradation behind it, but as you said Howlyn, people asked a lot "what time" and also just showed. In my mind, before daylight savings, dusk is 6:30. We had rain the day of the event, and I put off setting up the trail until it stopped, about 3:30. PLENTY of time if people show at 6:30, but when they started arriving in costume at 4:30, and you're still in sweats climbing ladders in the woods out back, not worth the cool invitation factor. 

The printmaking was my co-host's idea. We cut out halloweenish stencils from cardstock, bats, scary trees, head stones, jackolantern patterns, etc. cut additional pieces of cardstock into 4x6 pieces, we used black and white paper for this part, the stencil pieces could be whatever. We bought stencil brushes, which are sort of a cross between a sponge and a paint brush, and acrylic paint in black and white, and set up "work stations" in the black light spider lair with paint poured out in trays, and put out some black sharpies in thin and wide widths. We hung string clothesline style back and forth across the wall, and put up clothes pins on it, and made a couple of prints and wrote "enjoy the frightivities" on them then hung them to dry on the lines, and people took it from there, no further instruction needed, other than a little encouragement for people who don't embrace being artistic quite as readily. 

The clay was really spectacular too. I made all the "alien critters" before hand, but one I saw them under the blacklight, I thought "how cool to give people the ability to make stuff down here themselves". SO the day of the party I went to the craft store and bought a bunch of flourescent fimo clay, and people got to contribute to next year's display by making their own. 

A couple of other things I thought of since my last post. I anticipated people who "just don't dress up" for halloween, and left a box of props, wigs, masks and random costume type stuff on the porch with a sign that said "no costume? help yourself!" people actually did, or spruced up the costume they had already, so no one was without SOMETHING in the way of a costume. 

Another craft sort of thing we did was make a bunch of tent cards, and give people markers and stuff to decorate with. Our party was a potluck, so each person set out a card with the halloween name of their dish next to it. I had "gory ziti" and "not so gory ziti" (regular and vegetarian) and drew some bleeding body parts on the card. 

I LOVE the costume contest idea, and would really like to do that next year (your site is spectacular btw, so many amazing costumes and creative people!). I probably wouldn't have thought of certificates or some sort of prize though, so I'm glad I saw someone else's idea before trying it myself. I really want to do the party next year, reuse the stuff I bought and made, and also add more (of course). I'm a little concerned about the locale though. My husband and I live in a small apartment that precludes us from having an elaborate party with many guests. This year's party was held at a friend's place which is really an ideal party house, lots of open space, big back yard, private location, etc. I'm not sure if we'll be able to do it there again though. The friends who's house we had it at (I did 90% of the planning and work, as they'll attest to as well) SAY they loved having it there, and REALLY enjoyed it. The idea of not having the party stinks, I hope something works out.....


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## Howlyn (Sep 28, 2004)

Those activities sound very cool Lovingcupgirl...Can I come to your party next year???  I think our guests would have fun naming the dishes they brought too...I'm going to try that one for sure and a station to get creative with stencils, rubber stamps, etc...to add to our Halloween scrapbook. Great ideas!

Thank you for the nice comments on our website. We do have several creative friends and family that go all out on their costumes each year. Every year we try to come up with something different to reward them in their efforts. It's hard tho when you are on a limited budget like we are. Other people here had some great ideas on trophies etc... when I asked about what they use for prizes for costumes. 

That is what I love about this place...everyone has such creative ideas! 

---------------------
Howling in shadows
Living in a lunar spell
He finds his heaven
Spewing from the mouth of hell

And when he finds who he's looking for
Listen in awe and you'll hear him...

Bark at the moon.


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## Wolfman (Apr 15, 2004)

LCG, I am not much of a "Party Person" at all, hate 'em, actually. But your shindig looks like something even I could get off on. Good Show.

Wolfman


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## lovingcupgirl (Nov 6, 2004)

if you wear a costume, and are into it, you're invited! Provided of course I find a host...... Doh!

"I feel I've never told you the story of the ghost......"


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## barefootcountrygirl (Oct 1, 2003)

Our party turned out to be a huge success this year. We invited people to the Haunted Manor of the Witches of East Lake for a game of Fear Factor and a Haunted Hayride. We invited about 50 or so, but I included on the invitations that everyone was welcome and we ended up with 82 guests that I could remember the next day. We had all ages, from 2 to 82. We had a blast, the Fear Factor game was hilarious. Some of the kids loved watching their parent's names get drawn to eat something gross. I had people all night asking what we're doing next year.

Yagottawanna!


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## Trinidee (Sep 28, 2004)

Our Halloween party was a blast!!!!My hubby was a Pirate and I was his Tavern Wench. It's funny ,the people who say they are coming to the party sometimes don't show and the ones who don't RSVP are the ones who come.We had decorated with a Pirate theme.
We made a Bar downstairs.My hubby used my counter top from my laundry room to build a Bar.He made a frame and then screwed the counter top on. He staplpled black plastic around the frame and the bar was done.It turned out great!!My birthday is October 21st so he bought me a Fog machine and a Skeleton that was over six feet tall.I loved it and it went perfect with my theme.I placed my skeleton in my kitchen ,put a patch on his eye and a bandana on his head.I bought a bird and put it in a cage hanging next to him.
We served little smokies that were soaked in devil's spit ,gobblin cheese ball and crackers,chips and dips, yummy mummy bread and spinach dip,pretzels,jello shots, pasta salads, brownies and cookies and candy, candy ,candy.Most of my guests just drank and drank.I am so suprized that no one got sick.We had a Kareokee Machine(I'm a bad speller)
And it was so fun to watch the drunk folks shouting out songs that they don't know.I never laughed so hard.Kareokee went on until 3:00AM I suggest getting or borrowing a michine for next Halloween.I took photo's but forgot to get pictures of my grave yard out side.Oh well!!!And I only got pictures of the first part of the night.I must have set the camera down or maybe I was too drunk.It was so much fun!!!
This year I wil be turning 30 years old on October 21st so My Halloween -Birthday bash will be big and we are inviting alot of people.I want to start early and come up with some ideas that I have not used in the past. I forgot to give away the prizes for best costume,the party was hoppin and time flew by.No one noticed but this year I want to build trophies like some of you did .The pictures are awsome!!!My hubby thinks I am nuts for already ploting and planning but Halloween is my Favorite time of the year and I just can't get enough.
I wish you all Happy Hauntings this year.
Trinidee


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## Demonic Dante (Feb 5, 2005)

well i offically started planning and plottin 3 days ago i already bought a 10 dollar led eye vampire skull and i duplicated a skull and looking for a costume


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