A British Themed Halloween Party

This past Halloween (sorry for such a delay on posting) I co-hosted a British themed Halloween party. We called it a fancy dress party, as that means costume in England. Everyone tried to come as something English. A friend was the Queen, I was Sherlock Holmes, another friend's boyfriend was also Holmes, my sister was Amy Pond from Doctor Who, etc. While we did this for Halloween, you can always use some of these ideas for any England-themed party.

My friend who came as the Queen made the fun flag and banner you see in the photos above for decoration. We attached the flag to the front of the kitchen table where all the snacks were, so it looked really cute.

The same friend made these cute brownies with flag toppers on a few. Each brownie also had red, white, and blue sprinkles to match the flag. I thought they were adorable!

Below you will find some more shots of the decorations. We used a mix of simple Halloween decorations, as well as English items (like dvds and books laid out).

And now on to the food! I got the Frankenstein bowl above from the dollar section of Target. Frankenstein's monster is great for an English party since the book was written by british author Mary Shelley. We placed a bag of Jelly Babies (an English candy) in the bowl. We had a mix of English candy and items for the party that I got at Jungle Jim's; a great store with food from all sorts of countries.

I used the "double, double" quote from William Shakespeare's play Macbeth for the punch bowl. I found the printable online.

We tried to use the Subway station signs (printed out from online) as our food labels. The wording didn't show up well on camera, but it looked cute in person. This is "Dr. Frankenstein's Laboratory" where I laid out my copy of Frankenstein and two test bottles of Halloween candy. Nobody opened these, but they were cute as decorations.

I had to do something Harry Potter themed. The label for these was found online, as well as the recipe. It's simply a pretzel, a rolo, and a pecan. Yum!

I saw these knife cupcake toppers at Michael's and just had to use them for Jack the Ripper! The cupcakes are topped with some red icing too for blood. I placed a few out on Bram Stoker's Dracula to show off- the blood works for that too!

I had these purple Halloween shot glasses from a previous year and we used them to allow people to try the soda above, which I also got in the Great Britain section of Jungle Jim's.

This is just a shot of the chips and salsa we had out for snacks! We placed the little plates in the back as decoration instead of actually using them.

The musical Sweeney Todd has a character named Mrs. Lovett (played by Helena Bonham Carter in the film) and she makes these "meat pies" made up of people Sweeney has killed. Lovely, I know. Anyway, I made these "fruit pies" instead and called them Mrs. Lovett's fruit pies with some toppers of Carter holding one of her pies in the film.

Sorry for the sideways shot, but I wanted to show the drinks. I used Halloween-themed drink labels for the orange cups. I got them in the Target clearance aisle as well, I believe. I taped the sign "Keep Calm and Have a Cuppa" to the table and provided some fun black and white paper straws.

That's about it for the food and decorations! While some of these things are Halloween-esque, they are also British, so hopefully you can find some fun things to do for whatever theme you're going with.

Games:

We had a few games. One was called "Queue and Eh" which was basically a Question and Answer with British-themed questions. A couple of the questions I used:


True or False: William Shakespeare had a son named Hamlet - FALSE, his name was Hamnet

Sweeney Todd works on what street in England? - Fleet Streeet

We also had a game called Word Choice and people had to write down as many words as they could make from Baskervilles (the Arthur Conan Doyle book). Some examples are bask, vile, silk, silver, etc.

I also printed out five golden tickets online for Willy Wonka and hid them throughout the house. Whoever found them first won a bag of Willy Wonka candy.

My friend who was the Queen also brought a fun game where people broke into teams and all but one member had to pick something "english themed" from a bowl and using only one word each, they had to try and get the rest of the lone member to guess what it was. They got a certain amount of time to guess as many items as they could. It was a bit difficult to use one word after awhile, so it soon just turned into "say what you can to get them to guess it." It brought people together and seemed to be enjoyed by most.

Finally, we had a costume contest where people voted for Best Girl and Best Guy. The winners got a bag of some fun goodies. For example, the guy got Dracula themed solid cologne, etc.

Prizes:

I had the Willy Wonka candy for the golden ticket game.

I had other english-themed prizes too, like books written by British authors, British candy from Jungle Jim's, British potato chips from Jungle Jim's, a zombified Sherlock Holmes coaster, etc.

And that's it! Again, I'm sorry I'm just NOW posting about Halloween, but I hope to have my last three parties up ASAP and then I will try and be more consistent with posting here. Please pin, facebook, tweet, leave comments (I will visit your blog in return), etc.


I link up at http://www.somedaycrafts.blogspot.com/, http://www.raegunramblings.com/, and http://tatertotsandjello.com/

Clue-Themed Halloween Party (with pictures)

 

Clue-Themed Halloween Party

I held my Halloween party on October 13, so that my friends had a chance to do other Halloween-related things closer to the actual holiday. Plus, after I picked the date, I realized it's the 13th! Perfect day to celebrate a spooky holiday. Not that my theme was spooky. I made it a Clue themed party (you know, like the game and movie?!) The above photo shows my sister as Ms. Scarlett and myself as Mrs. Peacock (I wore a dress I had from being a bridesmaid this past summer so yay for second uses!).

Games/Activities

prize bucket

I think games/activities are fun, no matter how old you are, so I came up with and found a few things to do! Besides one "game" with set prizes (as you will see below), I had every winner choose something from the prize bucket, which included a variety of Halloween-esque items. The bucket was a lovely gift from a Halloween swap I participated in, so thanks Sara!

Real-Life Clue- Not the actual name, but that's essentially the point of the game. I gave everyone a notecard as they arrived to the party that said Name and Hard to Guess Fact About Yourself already written on it. They would fill it out and give it back to me. Later in the evening, I numbered the cards and read each clue aloud as everyone wrote down who they thought had written what on their own piece of paper (automatic point because you know your own clue). Whoever got the most right, won. I even included a clue for myself. Mine was "I attended an entire class at a school I didn't go to." Another friend wrote "I had blonde hair when I was younger." It was fun, and surprisingly, it was a tough game for most people...I really thought the clues might be too easy, but in the end, only my sister got them all right!

Murderer/Victim- I had everyone write their name on a piece of paper and I put them all into a vase. Before watching the movie Clue at the end of the night, I picked out two names. Easy enough! The first name was the victim and the second was the murderer. I got plastic Halloween jars at the Dollar Tree and filled them up with little goodies (even a pair of socks in one jar), as well as lots of candy. Each winner got a jar (and this is one thing I didn't get a photo of, so sorry about that!)

Halloween Trivia- I had paper for everyone to write down answers for the various games, and for this one, I read Halloween trivia questions out loud (which I found here, along with the answers) and everyone had to write down the answer on their piece of paper. I then read the answeres aloud at the end and, again, whoever got the most right won the game! I didn't use all the questions, but most of them! It was very handy so thanks to the blog for allowing people to use these for their own use.

Halloween Mad Gab- I wanted to have everyone go around and read these out loud one at a time, because that IS the point of the game...you have to hear what these phrases sound like. It was kind of difficult to do that, though, so I ended up just reading them out loud myself and whoever wanted to listen could do so. Everyone wrote down the answers and the winner was whoever got the most correct. This was another game I found online, so thanks for allowing others to use these (she includes the phrases to read out loud, and then the right answers!)

The Movie- And finally, we tried to watch the movie Clue, which I checked out from my local library. The key word is try since the dvd was scratched or something, and it kept freezing or skipping over parts. In the end, we got the basics of the movie, but it was kind of a bummer! I think most of us had already seen it, though, so that was a good thing!

Food

One of my favorite parts of planning for a party is the food. I love figuring out items/names that fit the theme, and for Clue, I wanted some type of food that would go along with every single player in the game (essentially, it broke down to a food name that started with the same letter of the character, because I couldn't make colors work for all of them- Professor Plum and Mr. Green are the exceptions).

Colonel Mustard's Munchies (there really is a snack called Munchies, that includes a variety of chips and pretzels. So yummy)

 

Mrs. Peacock's Popcorn (Smartfood kettle corn)

 

Miss. Scarlett's Salami Roll-ups (these are just yummy, and I hadn't made them for a party yet)

 

Professor Plum Pops (I used my cake pop maker for the first time with these, and by me, I mean my sister. Apparently, they were easy to make and they tasted really good, so victory)

 

Mrs. White's Witch Hats (I found these on this blog and I'm so glad I did. Easy to put together and very tasty!)

 

Boo Dip with Bagels (basically, bagel dip and while it's not Clue-related, I asked a friend to make it and I had to give it some type of Halloween name so it fit in)

 

And finally, I just now realized that I didn't get a picture of this...but I had Mr. Green Goop that was a punch recipe that I break out for most of my parties as my friends really like it. It's simple to make, oh so tasty, and it's actually a green color!

 

Decorations

Finally, the few decorations I had set up!

Of course, the movie Clue was floating around! The pumpkin plate is a fun item I got in a previous year's Halloween swap, while that cute little owl is something I got from this year's Halloween swap (thanks again Sara!)

 

I got the above lanterns at the Dollar Tree. Unfortunately, the pumpkin wouldn't stay lit up but it was still cute on its own. The white spot in the other corner was a ghost, though, and that did light up (as you can kind of see in this photo). It was a fun addition. There was a lantern on either side of my TV.

That is an above shot of my table. You can see a different view of the plate and the owl (and that black dot is a Halloween candle holder), but I really wanted to show my little snacks. All my main food is in the corner on two tables, but I had a few popcorn containers I got in the Target clearance aisle that I filled with M & M's and chocolate covered pretzels shaped like pumpkins (I bought these are Target too- yummy!) I thought it was a fun addition to the decor and it was a quick snack to nibble on as we waited for people to arrive, if anyone wished to dig in!

I found the above Zombie Virus label on a blog and I was quickly printing these off at the library, so I was only able to get the one. I wanted something for each bottle, but oh well, I just put the sprite in front so it was shown off! These are also slightly smaller bottles (not a 2 liter) that I got for a dollar each at, you guessed it, the Dollar Tree. Such a great deal since I like to have a few drink options, but my friends really don't drink a lot, so I don't want it to go to waste. (I suppose this picture belonged under food, but it's kind of a decoration with the sign- just another little addition that was Halloween-related and not strictly Clue!)

And finally, this is a shot of my main food table. I had a little table off to the side with plates, napkins, punch, and other drinks but this one held most of the food. It had two little "lanterns" with candles (one is white, the other yellow) which we had lit and a cute little pink box with a black cat that held Halloween candy. Everything was from Target, minus the actual candy, which I got from the Dollar Tree. The fun skeleton tablecloth was from the Dollar Tree too. A friend who couldn't make it to the party picked it out earlier in the week, saying Clue was about murder and a "dead body" would fit that theme, so volia! And that cute little Halloween tree is from Avon. I love that it lights up by flipping a switch, instead of having to plug it in!

Whew, long post, but I hope you enjoyed it. I'm always happy to help you plan parties if you need ideas. I like coming up with foods and activities/games, especially. If you can pay something, awesome, but it's not necessary. I'd love help spreading the word about my blog as well!

I hope to link up at the following parties-

http://www.houseofhepworths.com/ http://tidymom.net http://tatertotsandjello.com http://www.iheartnaptime.net http://www.skiptomylou.org http://www.tipjunkie.com/category/handmade-projects/ and http://somedaycrafts.blogspot.com/