Mini Halloween Party at Home
Halloween might not be as big in Australia as it is in the the USA but lollies, dress ups, meeting neighbours, a mini party at home, fun food and decorations are all things we love to enjoy!
With Halloween just over a week away, and falling on a weekend this year, we believe that Saturday 31 October is promising to be bigger than ever. The weather has warmed up, the restrictions are lifting and community spirt is at an all time high in suburban neighbourhoods so you can expect to see lots more trick-or-treaters out and about.
It is also a great time to craft, bake and decorate - willing away the bad vibes of the last few months and looking forward to the start of a wonderfully festive season.
We have made Halloween easy and fun for the whole family with no-bake treat ideas, this 'How to Halloween at Home' mini party guide and decorations that are beautiful, quick to assemble, easy to reuse year-on-year and that will be the envy of the whole street!
How to Halloween at Home - 3 Step Mini Party Guide
A mini party at home for Halloween doesn't need to be expensive or mean hours of time creating lots of different crafts from scratch - here's our How to Guide for a easy and fun Mini Halloween Party at home:
1. Decorate
A party isn't a party without decorations! Decorating is not only fun and playful but it creates the party space and sets the atmosphere. Decorating is a way to turn the everyday in something exciting, different and fun.
We love decorations that are environmentally friendly - made from paper, reusable or biodegradable. For this mini party we used a mini 1m DIY balloon garland kit containing on 100% biodegradable latex balloons made from natural rubber trees.
NB: Please note that not all balloons are created equal and you should check the packaging because sadly most cheap balloons are made from plastics isn China.
We added the EEK bright orange foil balloon for that Halloween touch and we love these because they do not require helium - it's air-fill only and they can also be deflated and packed away to reuse next year. A few fun paper tassels added to the trees made extra festive Halloween decor for the mini party.
The party table was layered with a scrap of grey cheesecloth material and then some fake spiders web stretched over to create a spooky setting. We added bright lime green paper plates and matching black stripe cups with paper straws. And invited an extra Ghost as a party guest to sit with the kids - They thought that was the best idea!
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2. Fun Party Food
So many fun ideas for Halloween treats it's hard to pick just a few! As our Halloween party was quite small and the kids would be treasure hunting for lollies as well, we kept the treats to just one share plate containing the cutest Bat Oreo Cookies, Mummy Treats, Gummy Worms and Cupcakes. Decorating the party food as an activity kept the kids entertained and they loved being creative with the Eye sprinkles and finding the mini pumpkins and bats in the Fright Night Sprinkles and especially 'playing' with their food!
It was easier to have the sprinkles and all the little extra treats in paper food cups for the kids to decorate the cupcakes, it kept the mess mostly contained and made sure their little sticky hands didn't go into all the other packets of food. It also meant we could limit the number of items out on the counter making it easier for the kids to choose and decorate their cupcakes.
The paper food cups are so versatile - They hold liquid without leaking or falling apart so you can make bake straight into them without a muffin tin but you can also use them as jelly cups (jelly with snakes or frogs in them for Halloween), fruit, crackers, yoghurt - anything really - Perfect for little hands to hold and made from recyclable paper.
Find 4 no-bake easy Halloween party treats on our blog here: No-Bake Halloween Treats
3. Games & Activities
You can put a Halloween spin on just about any party game! Think Pin the Witch on the Broomstick or Sensory play finding objects in a bowl of jelly. As the party was in the garden we played Trick-or-Treat Treasure Hunt and hid a bunch of mini balloons for the kids to find.
Each mini balloon has a pinch of bright paper confetti and a wrapped lollie inside and we added mini halloween pumpkin face stickers to each one for fun.
When the kids found a mini balloon they popped it with a toothpick to get both a trick (a pop of confetti) and a treat (the wrapped lollie inside) - They absolutely loved it! And were more interested in finding and popping the balloons then eating the lollies inside.
NB: The paper confetti we used is biodegradable and will wash away after a few days in the garden (but the kids did spend a bit of time picking up the confetti as a sort of game as well) The mini balloons are 100% compostable and biodegradable, made from natural latex from renewable rubber trees in the USA.
We then moved all the decorations to the driveway for a Halloween Costume Parade with the neighbours which turned into a mini dance party with lots of fun photos!
We all had such a fun time and the kids absolutely loved every party of the afternoon from decorating to helping set the table, putting the party food together, treasure hunting and dancing around in the driveway.
Special Thanks
A very special thanks to Rachael Tickner, @thepinkjubilee and her two beautiful boys Ollie & Oscar for opening her home to us and being involved in our Halloween Mini Party. http://www.thepinkjubilee.com.au/
And the biggest thank you to Sarah @firenhoneyimages enough for capturing these beautiful memories and photos and bringing along little Jordy to join in the fun. https://www.facebook.com/firenhoneyimages/