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Picture this: a moonlit evening, door squeaks, occasional bat screams and a low bonfire sparkling in the distance. As you move closer, through the laces of vapor, thick air infused with unusual smells you see a huge cauldron full of deliciously fragrant concoction and a group of witches mysteriously whispering over the pot watching it's oily, fragrant content change slowly into a rich creamy substance. Love potion? Longevity elixir? Neither, what you are about to witness is the magic of soapmaking!
Well, how does that sound for an innovative Halloween party theme?;) Paying due to the traditional Halloween games and fun, the Halloween Soapmaking Party will be the one your guests will talk about for months to come!
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INVITATIONS: |
For an invitation use cut-out or drawn pictures of witches, pumpkins, ghosts, skeleton, haunted house etc. Add a Halloween theme line like "Come to my party or ELSE!", "Boo" or "Come if you dare!". Specify date and time, and instruct your guests to wear a costume.
Should you run out of ideas check out our HALLOWEEN PARTY INVITATION: 
Print the template on a cardstock or heavy paper. Cut out the invitation and fold it 2 times to make a 4"x4" card with both inside and outside printed. With a luminous gelly pen or any pen that'll show on black, specify "where" and "when" your party will be and add a custom message for each of the guests. Tip to make the invitation more mysterious, instead of writing compile your message using letters and words cut out from a newspaper or a magazine.
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SETTING: |
The scarier the better - glow in the dark spider web hanging in the corners, bones, skeletons and witches on the wall, bats hanging down from the ceiling. To make a ghost fill the trash bags with crumpled newspaper, tie masking tape around the neck, drape a white sheet or a piece of material over the head and tie with string or masking tape. Make paper eyes and a mouth and attach them to the ghost's head with a piece of scotch tape. Fill the room with black and orange balloons. Sprinkle some popcorn on the floor and cover it with a rug -it'll produce a creepy bone cracking sound when stepped on. Last touch - a "Caution-haunted house" sign across the front door or around the house. Turn the lights off and the spooky music on. The haunted house is ready to welcome those who dare...
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PARTY: |
Let one of the parents or an older sibling
greet your guests dressed up as a witch, a
monster or a ghost. Instruct him/her to give
your guests a good portion of "Boo's"
and tickles as they enter. Blindfold each
of the guests and walk them through a mysterious
labyrinth while telling them a scary story
and making them touch a brain (cooked cauliflower,
chilled), eyeballs (peeled grapes), a bowl
of noses (cut hot dogs), guts (cooked spaghetti,
rewarmed), dried ears (dried apples, 1/2'd),
a hand (glove filled with water), bat toenails
(seeds), and a liver (slab of jell-o). Brrrrrrr..
scary! Only those who went through this task
will be allowed to join the circle of witches
for a sacred ceremony of soapmaking. Let everyone
gather around a table, and make a mysterious
introduction to what the guests have to go
through to create a soap. To make a halloween
soap you'll need our orange, black and white Melt & Pour bases and some cookie cutters. You melt and pour the soap into a shallow baking tin, allow it to cool, and then cut the soap with cookie cutters. You place these colored shaped soaps, in rectangle soap molds, and pour clear soap over them. Spice up your soap concoction with our orange glitter, candy corn fragrance oil and bobbing for apples fragrance. For picture instructions on soap making check out our Confetti Soap and Oatmeal, Milk & Honey Bar recipes.
You can further enrich this activity by letting the guests create their own labels and paper packaging for the soaps they make. Have colored paper, scissors and crayons handy.
Done with the soaps - time to play! Here are some games you can incorporate into your party's program:
Rap the Mummy You need an even number of people and a lot of toilet paper. Get everybody into teams of two. Let each couple decide who's going to wrap the mummy first. The task is to be the first to wrap your partner with toilet paper. Once the person is fully wrapped the "mummy" break out of the toilet paper and wraps the other person. The first team that wraps each other wins!
Spoon Game You blindfold one person and put a wooden spoon in each of his/her hands. Then spin the person around a few times while everyone moves around the room. Then everyone must freeze. The blindfolded person then tries to find someone. When he does he then feels the shape of the person who is caught using only the spoons. It's very funny cause the person with the spoons has no idea where he/she might be poking the person moreover when the person caught is wearing a costume. The person has 3 guesses to figure out who's caught. If he succeeds then then he/she and the one caught swipe roles.
Take photos throughout the night to remember the event.
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SNACKS: |
Everything will do for a Halloween menu as long as it is creepy, spooky and ghastly enough. Orange, black and green food coloring will guide you through. Orange jello with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles on top, snot green cheese boogers, sandwiches cut with halloween shaped cookies cutters - ideas are endless! Check out some of our favorite recipes below:
EYEBALLS
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup butter at room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups smooth peanut butter
- 1 pound powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 12 ounces dark chocolate
- 12 ounces white chocolate
Method: In a medium bowl, mix the butter and peanut butter together until smooth. Beat in the sugar and vanilla and mix until smooth. Using your hands, mold the mixture into 3/4 inch balls and place on the prepared cookie sheets. Refrigerate for 45 minutes. In the microwave or a small heavy saucepan, melt the dark chocolate. Place a toothpick in each ball and dip the ball entirely into the dark chocolate. Return the ball to the cookie sheet and place the finished sheet into the refrigerator. Let cool for 30 minutes. In the microwave or in a small heavy saucepan, melt the white chocolate until smooth. Dip each ball of chocolate into the white chocolate, leaving a small circle to form the iris and pupil of the eye. Return to the cookie sheet and let sit at room temperature until firm. Tip: to make bloodshot eyeballs, stir some red food coloring into white chocolate and swirl very gently until it looks bloodshot and then dip the ball in it. Use dark chocolate for pupil of the eye.
BOOGERS ON A STICK
Ingredients:
- 1 jar of cheez whiz (8 oz.)
- green food coloring
- 20-30 pretzel sticks
Method: With a help of an adult, melt the cheeze whiz in the microwave or on top of the stove, according to directions on the jar. Allow the cheese to cool slightly in the jar. Using a long handled spoon, carefully stir about three drops of green food coloring into the warm cheese, just enough to turn the cheese a delicate snot green. To form boogers: Dip and twist the tip of each pretzel stick into the cheese, lift out, wait twenty seconds, then dip again. When cheese lumps reach an appealingly boogerish size, set pretzels, booger down, onto a sheet of waxed paper. Allow finished boogers on a stick to cool at room temperature for ten minutes or until cheese is firm. Gently pull boogers off waxed paper and arrange on a serving platter. Tip: For a bloody touch, serve boogers with chunky red salsa or ketchup dip.
HALLOWEEN PUNCH
Ingredients:
- 1 (.13 ounce) envelope unsweetened grape soft drink mix
- 1 (.13 ounce) envelope unsweetened orange soft drink mix
- 2 cups white sugar
- 3 quarts cold water
- 1 liter ginger ale
Method: Stir together grape soft drink mix, orange soft drink mix, sugar and water until solids are dissolved. Combine with chilled ginger ale just before serving. For a spooky touch add frozen 'hand'! To make a frozen hand, wash a disposable glove, fill with water, seal with a rubber band and freeze until hard. Dip the frozen hand briefly in warm water, then peel off the glove. Float the prepared hand in the punch bowl for a ghastly effect.
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PARTY
FAVORS: |
You can use plastic pumpkins as goody bags and stuff them up with halloween candies, bubble gum, pencils, stickers and glow sticks. Add a bar of orange, black or white halloween soap that was made during the witch soapmaking party tied with a ribbon or raffia to a loofah, a bath glove or a small bottle of bath salt, bath oil. Tangerine flavor shea butter lip balm is ideal as an after party treat too. For more gift ideas check out our selection of Bath Accessories and Packaging Items. Place a name tag on each pumpkin. Pictures taken during the party, if you have a chance to develop them by the time the guests leave, will be the perfect icing on top of these goody bags!
If making goody bags is not your style or if you're just short of time, you might consider purchasing our $5 or $10 gift certificates as gifts for your guests. Introducing your friends to Kits For Crafts would be the best gift you can give!
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Did you know that.. |
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Trick or Treat:
The custom of trick-or-treating is thought to have originated with a 9th century European custom called "souling." On November 2nd, All Souls' Day, early Christians would walk from village to village begging for "soul cakes," made of square pieces of bread with currants. The more soul cakes the beggars would receive, the more prayers they would promise to say on behalf of the donors' relatives who had passed away.
Jack-O-Lanterns: Irish children used to carve out potatoes and turnips and light them for their Halloween gatherings. As legend has it, these "lanterns" commemorated Jack, a shifty Irish villain so wicked that neither heaven nor the Devil wanted him. Rejected by both the sacred and profane, he wandered the world endlessly looking for a place to rest, his only warmth a glittering candle in a rotten potato.
The tradition of dressing in costume for Halloween has both European and Celtic roots. Hundreds of years ago, winter was an uncertain and frightening time. Food supplies often ran low and, for the many people afraid of the dark, the short days of winter were full of constant worry. On Halloween, when it was believed that ghosts came back to the earthly world, people thought that they would encounter ghosts if they left their homes. To avoid being recognized by these ghosts, people would wear masks when they left their homes after dark so that the ghosts would mistake them for fellow spirits. On Halloween, to keep ghosts away from their houses, people would place bowls of food outside their homes to appease the ghosts and prevent them from attempting to enter.
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