5 Ideas for Affordable Halloween Parties

Plus, Costumes on a Budget

This Halloween, you don't have to buy expensive decorations or food to throw a successful theme party. Here are some suggestions for creative ways to throw a party and make a costume affordably.

1. Decorate. Store-bought decorations can be pricey. Be creative and try decorating with items you may already have around the house such as:
   • Hand-shaped Ice. Freeze water or red juice inside a surgical glove. Float in a bowl of water or punch.
   • Spider Webs. Use the tape from old cassettes or black yarn to make spider webs. Use cotton balls stretched out for smaller spider webs.
2. Have a Potluck. Invite your guests to bring a dish to pass. Encourage your guests to bring inexpensive, Halloween-themed dishes such as:
   • Edible Slime. Pour lime gelatin into a glass bowl. After it is partially set, add gummy worms. Chill until set. Then serve slopped all over the plate.
   • Zombie Popcorn. Add red or green food coloring to melted butter and pour over popcorn.
   • Radioactive Juice. Mix equal parts Mountain Dew and blue Kool-Aid.
   • Toxic Juice. Add some green food coloring to lemonade for an eerie color.
3. Carve Pumpkins. This time of year, pumpkins are typically quite affordable. Ask each guest to bring their own, or provide a few for guests to carve using standard kitchen implements.
4. Have a Halloween Scavenger Hunt. Make a list of "scary" items to find throughout the dorm, house or neighborhood. Make teams, then have participants search for and photograph their finds. The winning team could win a small prize.
5. Have a Costume Contest. Create a runway so that each partygoer in a costume can show off his or her costume. Then vote for the best costumes by having everyone write down the costume they liked best. Tally the votes to find the winner.

Halloween Costume Ideas

If you're short on costume ideas, try one of these low-cost, homemade options:

• Make your Own Makeup with a few common household items and food coloring.
  • Face Paint. Mix 1 tsp. corn starch, 1/2 tsp. water, 1/2 tsp. cold cream, a few drops of food coloring. Mix all ingredients together in an old muffin pan and you are ready to paint.
  • Fake Blood. Mix 2/3 cup white corn syrup, 1 tsp. red food coloring, 2-3 drops blue food coloring to darken and 1 squirt dish soap (which helps blood to run well).
  • Look Old. Cover face with baby powder. Draw dark lines on your skin for wrinkles. Smooth edges to blend. Cover again with powder. Put more powder on your hair to create gray hair.
• Plastic Surgeon. Wear scrubs. Tape various pieces of plastic on yourself, such as plastic silverware, cups, small toys or anything else you have in mind.
• Snowman/Snowwoman. Wear oversized white sweats and stuff with cloth to fill out. Get a fake pipe, some small black pom-poms for coal buttons and a top hat. You could even tape orange paper to your nose to look like a carrot.
• Basket of Laundry. Buy the cheapest, lightest laundry basket you can find. Cut a circle out of the bottom, just big enough for your body to fit through. Hang it over your shoulders with clothesline or string. Put 'dirty' clothes in the basket and on yourself, using clothespins and/or safety pins to hold them in place.

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