Coolest Halloween Party Ideas

Ready for some Halloween party ideas that’ll rattle your bones?! Start off with a big black steaming cauldron. Then, mix the Halloween party ideas below with your own cool ideas, stir, add a bat’s ear and a witch’s tooth, boil, and… POOF… brace yourself for the spookiest Halloween party ever!

One word of advice before we get going…

There’s lots of stuff you can do on your own. Not only to save money, but to give your Halloween party that personal touch you, your kids and your guests won’t ever forget.

The ideas on this site are not intended to be followed word for word. Use them to spark your creativity and give them your own twist (then, of course, share them with us to inspire others!)

Halloween Party Invitations

Here’s where our free and original printables start coming in handy:

See All the Printable Halloween Invitations

If you want to generate a bit of spine chills with your Halloween party ideas, write the invitation in the shape of a tombstone.

Write something like: Dear grave digger, come have a “bone-chilling” time at (kid’s name) Halloween party. Bring your scariest costume on (Date and Time) to the (your family name) Haunted House (address). Write down “Please RSVP”, cross out the RSVP and put down RIP instead. Finish off with: COME IF YOU DARE!

There are many great Halloween party ideas, so, instead of listing them here, we’ve put aside this entire page with more cool Halloween invitation ideas submitted by visitors like yourself.

Halloween Party Decorations

Here’s our selection of free and original printable decorations from our coolest Halloween printables site:

See All the Printable Halloween Decorations

Some of the basic Halloween party ideas for decorations can include orange and black streamers, imitation spider webs, rubber spiders and rats, hanging bats, real and plastic pumpkins, blinking skulls, corn stalks, scarecrows, and bails of hay.

For ready-made decorations, here are loads of really great ready-made Halloween decorations to check out.

For smaller kids, you can tone down the fright factor by turning your party area into a pumpkin patch with Jack-O-Lanterns and hay-rides. If it’s for older kids or adults, Halloween party ideas can include transforming your party area into a scary Haunted House or Graveyard with witches, mummies, and all sorts of other spine-chilling ideas.

One of the coolest Halloween party ideas is to drape some of the balloons with a sheet, cut out a face and tie them at the neck for some cool ghosts. For spookier ghosts, take a glow in the dark trinket, place it inside the balloon before you inflate and you’ll have glow-in-the-dark ghosts! Use cool glow-in-the-dark paints on black poster board to make a Halloween sign, such as “Luna C. Asylum”.

One of the spookiest Halloween party ideas for a setting is to build your own graveyard. Make tombstones out of cardboard, Styrofoam, or even cereal boxes and paint funny epitaphs such as: Barry D’Live, M.T. Box, Dracula Born 1732, died 1756, 1835, 1877, U. R. Next, Fester N Rot, Here Lies Good old Fred…A Great Big Rock Fell on His Head. Add fake hands coming up out of ground as well as various “bones” and “skulls” popping up by headstones.

Here’s a cool idea for a “circle of ghosts”. Take six white small trash bags and fill them with crumpled newspaper. Push one dowel into each bag, wrap with masking tape around the neck, drape a white sheet over each head and tie with a string. Now you have six ghosts. Arrange them in a circle about two feet apart from each other (around a tree, grave, etc.). Finally, knot the corners of the sheets together as if the ghosts were holding hands.

You’ll also want to carve your own pumpkins! Check out these free and cool pumpkin stencils to help you out:

Halloween sound and light effects can add such a creepy ambience to your Halloween party and they’re relatively easy to set up. It’s definitely worth your extra effort. You can download a whole bunch of FREE cool sound effects from the Web. Here’s a great free Halloween sound effect resource to start your search (do a search for free scary sounds and you’re sure to find many more!)

I would recommend purchasing a Neon Black Light which has a mesmerizing effect and will turn any room into a party place. Make sure to drape your furniture with white sheets. Also replace the regular white light bulbs with black and orange bulbs.

Making artificial fog is a cool idea and will go great together with you Halloween sound and light effects. You can even make the mist on your own. Fill a large bucket with water and then add dry ice. There should be enough water to cover the dry ice, and the proportions should be 2 parts water to 1 part dry ice. Warmer water will create thicker smoke, but it will disappear quickly. Cooler water will create thinner smoke but it will linger for a longer period of time. Here’s a great link to find out where dry ice is sold nearest to you…

Do you want more Halloween party ideas for decorations? Here’s an idea-filled page with great Halloween decoration ideas submitted by visitors like yourself.

Costume Ideas

If you’re planning to make your own costumes, Coolest Homemade Costumes offers a photo gallery and instructions to some of the most original and inspiring costume-making ideas (best of all it’s all free!)

Here are just a few examples to wet your appetite:

For your party, make sure everyone is dressed up and have plenty of easy-to-wear “extra” costumes and accessories handy. Inevitably a guest or two will arrive without a costume and then be filled with regret. You can place simple pieces in a “dress up” box by the front door including inexpensive hats, masks, wigs, necklaces, leis, vests, etc. Check out these free printable Halloween cone-hats:

See All Printable Halloween Hats

You can also allow guests to take the dress-up pieces home as favors. Here are some great free printable masks to print out and use:

See All Free Printable Masks

Halloween “Bone-Breaker” Activities

As your guests begin to arrive, you need to keep them busy until the late-comers make their belated entrance. Especially if you’ve got a bunch of kids attending the party. You can “kill” this time with a few ice breaker crafts (Ummm, I meant “bone-breaker” crafts :-)

Many of our free printables can be used during this ice breaking segment of your party – especially for kid parties. Here are a few options:

Pumpkin Carving and Decorating

This is one of the most popular Halloween party ideas. Give each guest a small pumpkin and help them carve out their own special designs. Obviously, parental supervision and assistance is necessary for kids of all ages. But this is a great icebreaker as it has the guests engrossed for quite a while. Instead of carving, you can also provide paint, brushes, glue, wobbly eyes, yarn for hair, stickers, magic markers, etc., and let the guests decorate their own pumpkins and take them home. These printable pumpkin patterns will come in handy. You can also give them orange balloons to decorate as pumpkins.

Lolly-Ghosts

Have each guest take a lollypop, wrap it in white cloth and secure it with a rubber band as the bottom of the candy. Then have them color and design their lolly-ghosts. This is one of the easiest Halloween party ideas and the kids love ’em!

Flashlight Ghosts

Get a bunch of inexpensive flashlights and have the guests cut out a circular piece of black paper that fits exactly over the light. Then have them cut out designs of a ghost or witch from the center of a black circle and tape or glue the cutout circle onto the flashlight. These are great favors and can also be used in one of the hunts that are described in the games and activities section.

Click here to view lots more cool craft and icebreaker Halloween party ideas…

Halloween Party Food & Drink Ideas

Let yourself go wild with your Halloween party ideas for food and you’re sure to come up with some original (and grotesque) foods.

You can turn your buffet table into a coffin by using sturdy cardboard, paint it black, and fill it with ghoulish goodies. Use a cool black caldron to put your foods in.

Also, make sure to label the foods so that everyone knows exactly what they’re chewing on. Kids love it when you give everyday food scary names.

These Printable Place-cards and Napkin Holders will come in handy:

Halloween Party Ideas for Food

Handburgers: Help the guests trace their hands on a beef patty and then cut it in the shape of their hands. Use the excess meat to make more patties.
Mummy Dogs: Hot dogs wrapped with breadstick dough and two dots of mustard for the eyes.
Spiders Dipped in Blood: Slice hot dogs with a knife from both ends to almost the middle several times. Boil and the ends curl up to look like spider legs.
Halloweenies: A less scary version of a hot dog.
Fried Fingers with a Side of Guts: Chili fries. Bloody Cat Soup: Take a ketchup bottle, peel off the label, write a new one with a black cat and stick it on.

You can really go wild with these Halloween food ideas. So, instead of trying to list them all here, we’ve created this entire page with some of the most ghoulish Halloween food ideas. On the menu, you’ll find ideas on making a Worm Casserole, Frankenstein’s Eyeballs, Skewered Eyeballs, Bat Wings and lots more – many submitted by visitors like yourself.

Halloween Party Ideas for Drinks:

Slimy Punch: Pour Mountain Dew into a punch bowl and add green Sherbet
Hands Floating in Blood: Fill several Latex gloves with water or Sprite and freeze. Float them in a big bowl of red punch. This’ll chill the drink while freaking everybody out.

Halloween Party Ideas for Treats:

Cat Litter: Mix Grapenuts with powdered sugar and pour the cat litter into a real litter box. Add Tootsie rolls or squished brownies and stir in with a cat litter scoop.
Spider Oreo’s: Separate the two parts of an Oreo cookie, put three strands of licorice across the cookie and put the top of the cookie back on. Use two dots of icing to anchor red hots or M&Ms for the eyes.
Dracula’s Teeth with Witch’s Blood: Nachos and cheese. Add green food coloring to the melted cheese for a great effect.
Krispie Eyes: Make Rice Krispie Treats (directions are on the cereal box). Form them into small balls, add an M&M or other small round candy for the iris, and dot the candy with frosting or gel for the pupil.
Candy Hands: Fill transparent Latex gloves with small wrapped candies and hang the latex gloves.
Bugs on a Log: Take a celery stick, smother with peanut butter, and add little ants (raisins). Another variation is to dip a pretzel rod halfway into peanut butter and roll in chocolate chips. This is a fun activity for little children and a treat that can be instantly consumed. And, it’s even HEALTHY!

Worms in Dirt: crumbled Oreo cookies topped with gummy snakes.
Cheese Bugs: Slice cubes of cheese and add thin, curling snacks (like the type seen in the photo).

Homemade Halloween Cakes

There’s no online homemade cakes gallery that even comes close to the one on www.coolest-birthday-cakes.com – especially the Halloween cakes section. There are more than a hundred haunted cakes with photos and how-to tips hiding behind the links below, so careful when you open them…

Here are a few more Halloween party ideas for cakes and desserts…

For a murky graveyard bake a rectangular cake. Then use Milano type Pepperidge farm cookies for “tombstones”, marshmallows for ghosts, marshmallow bats and spiders, Tootsie rolls for little logs and branches, etc.

You can also make Witch Hat ice cream cones. First, frost one side of a wafer cookie and set it aside. Fill a cone to the rim with ice cream and turn it upside down onto a wafer cookie. This can be a great activity for the kids to make themselves.

Another one of the coolest Halloween party ideas for treats is the Frozen Navel: Cut off the tops of navel oranges and hollow them out leaving a thick shell. Cut faces into the oranges (you can even do this as a contest or party activity).

Halloween Treat using Oranges and Ice Cream

Pack chocolate or vanilla ice cream into the orange, without letting any ice cream come out of the eyes, nose or mouth. Cut a small hole in the top and put the top back onto the orange. Put a piece of cinnamon stick in the hole to make it look like a pumpkin stem. Freeze for at least three hours.

And, here’s the most impressive homemade animated Halloween cake I’ve ever seen. It’s an animated cake, meaning that it MOVES with flying witches, haunted houses, eerie graveyards, spooky ghosts, jumping spiders and lots of cool effects on a REAL edible cake! You’ve got to see it to believe it!

Halloween Party Favors

You can call your favor bags “Boogie Bags” and use white plastic bags decorated by the kids. You can also use Halloween cellophane, the traditional plastic pumpkin buckets, our printable favor bags and boxes and lots of other creative ideas.

Stuff the bags with Halloween pencils, Halloween erasers, skull key chains, ghost erasers, tattoos, glow-in-the-dark items, and lots more great Halloween trinkets which can be found everywhere during the Halloween season.

Check out these free printable Doorknob Hangers and Bookmarks that can serve wonderfully as Halloween favors:

Halloween Games and Activities

There are so many great Halloween party ideas for games that your guests can play, that trying to list them all here would be impossible. We’ve placed a select few below and, make sure you click over to the Halloween party games section for many Halloween party ideas for games.

Slimy Eye Hunt: Place about three pounds of cooked spaghetti in a deep large pot or a cleaned out pumpkin. Color it green with food coloring and make it slimy with olive oil. Drop inside colored gumballs and one eyeball gumball (with the wrapper on). The guests have to reach in the guts and pull out gumballs until they grab the eyeball gumball. You can also use peeled grapes instead of gumballs. Another cool variation of this activity is with a large pumpkin. Cut open the pumpkin lid and loosen up the insides, removing a bit. Place coins or small plastic toys inside the pumpkin guts and have the guests reach in for their prize.
Eye Burst: Here’s one of the creepiest Halloween games that’ll send shivers down your guest’s spines! Go into a dark room with one of the guests and have all the other guests wait outside. One by one the guests enter the room blindfolded. Take their hand and have them touch the hair, then nose, then ears, etc of the guest that you took inside. Tell them exactly what it is they are touching. When you get to the eyes, have them touch the first eye and explain that this is one eye and here’s the second eye – but instead of touching the second eye, stick their finger inside a half tomato!! This often results in a high-pitched scream, which’ll have the guests outside shivering… Once they’re done, have the participants stay in the room so they don’t reveal what all the screaming is about.
Spider Web Hunt: Here’s one of those really creative Halloween party ideas. Get a few colors of yarn and make sure there’s at least one long strand per each guest (make extras). Tie one end of the yarn to a Popsicle stick and start wrapping the yarn around furniture or outside around trees, bushes, chairs, etc. You’ll get a very colorful spider web. At the end of each yarn strand tie a small paper bag of Halloween toys & treats. Each guest gets one Popsicle stick and they all have to untangle the web in order to get to their goodie bag.
Slime Race: Make slime in plastic Halloween cauldrons by putting two boxes of cornstarch in each cauldron, and adding water until the consistency is slime-like (4 parts cornstarch to 1 part water). You can also add green food coloring to make it look even more authentic. Form two teams. The first player in each group grabs some slime with his hands and runs to an empty cauldron at the other end where he glops it in, then runs back to tag the next kid in line. The first team to empty their Slime cauldron wins. Watch out, this is the sort of Halloween games that make a mess!
Eyeball Spoon Race: Split the guests again into a few groups. Give each one a plastic spoon and ping pong ball with eyes drawn on it. The first players in line take off with the spoons in their mouths and the ball on the spoon, run to a predetermined point and return without dropping the ball. If they drop the ball, they have to return to the starting point. Then, the next player in line goes until the team that finishes first wins. To make it more interesting, you can add pumpkins on the ground (like orange cones) and have the guests slalom from side to side.

Also check out these free printable Halloween Bingo games:

You’ll find many more visitor-submitted games on the Halloween games page, including Mummy Wrap, Suck it Up, Flaming Eyes, Doughnut Ghosts, Pin the Wart, and a whole bunch more.

We’ve also put together these general Halloween info sections to inspire you even more:

Halloween Party Tales

Take your coolest Halloween party ideas, add a few colorful photos and you’ve got a Halloween “PARTY TALE”.

Many of the Halloween party ideas you’ll find on this site have been sent to us by people around the world. These people are an inspiration to this site, helping make this site an inspiration to others.

Once your party is over, we’d love for you to send us your own PARTY TALE and we’ll create your very own theme party page and photo gallery that’s hosted on our site! (Family, friends and just about anybody will be able to find inspiration from YOUR Halloween party AND comment on YOUR Halloween party ideas!)

Here’s a chance for you to peek at other people’s Halloween PARTY TALES and find even more Halloween party ideas:

Trinity’s Halloween Birthday PARTY TALE (N. Richland Hills, TX)
Tina’s Halloween Birthday PARTY TALE (Englewood, OH)

Halloween Party Supplies

The great thing about throwing a Halloween party is that you can recycle your old Halloween decorations AND you can rationalize purchasing new decorations with the idea that you’ll use them over and over every Halloween!

A great place to start is Shindigz where you’ll find the Web’s largest selection of both costumes and Halloween party supplies.

We hope you’ve found these Halloween party ideas useful. Happy ghost busting, witch hunting and trick or treating!