For those of you who have no idea what I just said, my husband is in the Army. Every unit is supposed to have a Family Readiness Group to help support the families of soldiers (most do), and I am honored to be a part of the inception of this one. I was elected to the Special Events Chairperson position, and that means that I get to plan all the fun parties! (Among other responsibilities... but still... parties!)
The first big event that I will be scheduling is the Halloween Party. I absolutely love everything about Halloween: the weather, the smell of fireplaces burning, the sight of children dressed up and cheerful, candy (ahhh the candy), and of course... pumpkins. I love this photo by Darwin_Bell over on Flickr. I can't wait until we can go back to the Pumpkin Patch this fall!
I have about 6 weeks to plan the Halloween party. I have been trying to come up with some thrifty ideas since we are a new FRG and are having to work within a very small budget. I have been trying to focus on recycling items to use for various crafts, activities, and decorations.
One idea I had was to use Pringles cans or two liters as "bowling pins" and let the kids bowl a ball at them to get candy as a prize. I'm thinking of possibly having face painting as well, and a photo booth with pumpkins and a scare crow. There will hopefully be a costume competition, pumpkin painting, and more.
Do you have any suggestions that might be able to help me on my search for new ideas? What are your favorite Halloween activities, foods, or decorations?
Where to start. As my daughter's birthday is on Halloween I've laid on many cheap Halloween crafts. For younger children I've cut out Jack-o-lantern shapes: pumpkin from orange paper, various eyes, nose & mouths from black and a stem from green paper and let them stick funny faces together. I've also done mask making with simple paper masks. I gave them glue and lots of bits and pieces to glue to them: feathers, dried flowers, etc. (M Stewart has a similar one, might be on her web site.)
ReplyDeleteI've also saved the seeds from a carved pumpkin and had the children guess how many seeds were in it, closet person wins a prize. Another easy one is to make a huge Jack-o-lantern face to hang up, paint a face except the nose, cut out black triangles for noses and play pin the nose on the jack-o-lantern.
It's also festive to hollow out pumpkins, place a tin can inside filled with water and use it as a vase for flowers. If flowers aren't in the budget just use branches of coloured leaves or even just greenery.
I could go on but I must wake the kiddies for school. Let me know how the party goes. Your FRG are lucky to have you as an events chairperson :)
Congratulations... what a wonderful position for you! I'll think up some ideas and talk to you about them on messenger! Again... Yay you! You'll do wonderful.
ReplyDeleteWell this one is messy, but:
ReplyDeleteStuff brown paper lunch bags with paper and tie off the top. Twist the top to look like a stem. Paint your pumpkins orange with green stems. Go play another game while they dry, then cut out triangles and other shapes from black paper and glue on for faces.
My house is always decorated to the hilt for Halloween .. or rather, for autumn. In fact, I need to get hubby to help me clear out the rest of the packed-up stuff so I can get to decorating, since fall begins this weekend! In my more Halloween-y decorations, I focus on a more Victorian, old-world style than the garish and flashy stuff that's out now. I have a lot of ceramic pumpkins, scarecrows, witches and witch hats (I am one after all, it wouldn't do to go without that), and lots of silk flowers in autumnal colors.
ReplyDeleteI think I might pull out a small fake tree we have and decorate it for the season. Something else I'm doing this year is taking construction paper and twine and making garlands. We're having our monthly weekend knit-together for October at my house so I can't wait to get the house fully decorated.