Olioboard Inspiration – Festive Kids’ Halloween Costume Party

Entry #2925, October 23, 2013

Today we continue Stagetecture’s feature ‘Olioboard Inspiration‘. Last week you enjoyed – ‘Kitchen Creativity: Cooking with Kids‘ from Lisa Ketz. This week I feature Adele Baumann Healey who is a member of the Facebook Olioboard Fan Room group and she is getting you ready for Halloween! See how her festive kids’ halloween costume party gives creative ideas for you and your family! Whether they enjoy trick-or-treating or just dressing up with friends, her board will truly inspire.

If you’re interested in being featured see details here: How to be featured on Stagetecture’s Olioboard Inspiration‘ series.

To see all the past Stagetecture’s Olioboard Inspiration members on Pinterest click here.

Olioboard Inspiration #42

‘Festive Kids’ Halloween Costume Party’    Adele Baumann Healey

It’s that time of year again – Halloween, where excited children (young and old) prepare to pretend to be something they aren’t, from heroes to Tinker Bell, monsters to butterflies.  Let your own inner child take hold and plan a costume party for your children and their friends – don’t forget to invite their parents or a few of your own friends as well.  Costumes highly encouraged of course!

Kids’ Costume Party decorating 

While decorating for a Halloween party, always consider the age of the children that will be attending.  The worst scenario imaginable would be to have a young child run screaming from the house in pure terror.  Remember, the long nights of nightmares will be shared with you in great detail from the sleepless parents for years to come.

For a children’s party, I would highly suggest you forgo using the tempting candles offered this time of year.  Excited kids high on sugar will not be as concerned about open flames as their adult counterparts. Instead, opt for enough light in the house or venue to illuminate all the fun Halloween lanterns, wall plaques, spider webs, and of course the tables loaded with treats.

Halloween costume party treat ideas

Treats for the kids need not be the normal chips and hotdogs.  Why not have your own family help prepare for the party by having a group cooking evening where even the littlest child can help drop sprinkles on cupcakes or veggies on individual pizzas.  Search the web.  Everywhere you look there are clever and tasty ideas for children’s Halloween finger food, from pretzel and chocolate spiders to mummy pigs in a blanket, to ghost banana pops.  Most are simple to make, and depending on the age of your children or grandchildren, easy for the kids to be included.

Kids’ Halloween party activities

A great idea (although potentially messy, so have plenty of paper towels handy) is to stock up on small pumpkins and let the kids paint their own special party favor jack-o-lantern.

Have the kids put stickers on their pumpkins and then use washable paint and paint brushes, or finger paints and let the little ones smear it all over the pumpkins covering the stickers. Let the paint dry some and then remove stickers.  Add Glow in the Dark Sparkly glue to the spots not painted and let dry.  During the day, they’ll have colorful, sparkly pumpkins and at night, the pumpkins will glow!  The older the group of kids, the more detailed the painting can become and even teens would like to create a ghoulish pumpkin face.

Have fun, enjoy the noise and forget about real life for a short time, and start planning that Halloween costume party now!

I am a mother of two and a grandmother of 4.Our family was a member of the military for 21 years and lived all over the U.S and in Europe, moving 13 times in 19 years. While residing in Germany, we traveled constantly (my little kids in tow in our old V.W. camper) and I absorbed, through osmosis, the many historical attributes of architecture and design. Even in the U.S. it was a learning experience to see how the many people I met decorated and used their creative skills, each influenced by the environment in which they were living. Simply put, when you move so much and live in so many types of residences it was always a challenge to achieve a homey place for your family to grow and be nurtured. What was my biggest challenge to make into a home? An old TB ward of an empty, Army hospital building! Follow Adele as Redadie on her Olioboard profile