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Haunt Your House
Party Kit
Includes over a dozen items to turn a house into a spooky haunted house of fun. Great for parties! Comes with: (3) Door Decorations, (8) Spooky Eyes, (12) Ghostly Footprints, (1) Spider Web, (3) Inflatable Halloween Heads, (1) Halloween Sound CD, (1) "Popping Pad" Sheet, (3) Hanging Ghosts, PLUS a booklet of spooky haunted house ideas!

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Paranoid Pumpkin Party Theme For Halloween

The Paranoid Pumpkin Party is not a pumpkin carving party, but rather a Halloween theme party focused around pumpkins, jack-o-lanterns, and the color orange. We have ideas such as cool pumpkin invitations that you can make, great game activities, pumpkin related favors and foods, interesting costume ideas, music suggestions, and various decorating techniques, so you'll have plenty of options to choose from.

As you plan out your pumpkin party, keep in mind who will be invited. If this is a young children's party, you'll want your invitations and related decor to be cute and fun, with simple foods and easy games to play. For a teen Halloween party, you can certainly ramp it up to add spookier decorations, such as wicked-looking carved jack-o-lanterns.

For adults... the scarier the better it seems. I've tried to provide ideas for all ranges, however, use your imagination and take a "cute" idea and figure out how to make it "diabolical" for the grown-ups if that suits the party atmosphere.

Pumpkin Halloween Costume Ideas

Since this is a "pumpkin party," you can suggest to your friends that they dress up in a pumpkin costume or wear something that is orange in color (for those that aren't interested in dressing up as a large vegetable). A few different types of costume ideas could be:

Cover sweats with orange balloons, add some fake green vines and go as a walking pumpkin patch.
Nothing says "fall" like a bag of leaves. Buy those orange trash bags that have the jack-o-lantern faces on them, cut out circles near the top for arms, and at the bottom of the bag for your legs. Attach some orange yarn near the neck edge leaving several inches in length at the front. Step into the bag, stuff it with paper, tie carefully around your neck, and add some fall leaves on the outside.
Transform into Cinderella's coach (it would take a bit of work, but it's a great idea for a couple - Cinderella and her pumpkin coach).
Become the headless horseman carrying your pumpkin head with you.
Pumpkin patch witches and Pumpkin Spice costumes have become quite popular with the females and would work well with this theme.

Pumpkin Invitations

Of course you'll need to invite your intended guests. In order to let them know what kind of pary this is you should buy or make Hallowen invitations that feature pumpkins on them. There are a lot of wonderful invitations that would work for this theme that you can purchase, however a handmade invite adds that special touch. Plus, you can put whatever you want on them. Take a look at our sample pumpkin invitations for a few design ideas that are simple to put together.

Think Orange Decor

How you decorate will create the atmosphere for your pumpkin party. Cute, painted pumpkins are best suited for a kid's party, whereas wicked-looking and more elaborate cut-out jack-o-lantern patterns are perfect for illuminating a teen or adult party. Determine how many you'll need and where you want to place them.

Lit jack-o-lanterns in a dark hallway is a fantastic way to create a very spooky atmosphere as your guests enter the house. Use different shapes and sizes for contrast. Just be sure to place the pumpkins so that they won't get knocked over and guests won't accidently brush against them with their costumes.

If you have a main buffet table where food will be set out, put together a centerpiece from a carved pumpkin (your choice of patterns) and add rubber mice and spiders crawling all over it. For a more friendly table setting, hollow out a pumpkin, fill it part way with water, and fill it with autumn colored flowers.

Jester Jack-o-Lantern: Pumpkin Party Halloween Decorations

Orange crepe paper streamers are a staple of any Halloween party, so be sure to twist and hang from corner to corner on the ceilings, around doors and windows, plus any place else that could use some "decor magic."

The above are just a few ideas to help you get started. This article - Halloween pumpkin decorations - has many more suggestions that are perfect for decorating pumpkin parties.

Activities, Games, Prizes and Favors

Kids love Halloween games. Adults, not so much... unless they're really fun and interesting. Either way, be sure to plan for some activites that focus on your theme, especially for children.

Ideas abound when it comes to pumpkin party games such as playing: pumpkin ring toss, pumpkin bowling, pass the orange, creating a pumpkin pinata, or testing adult knowledge with a trivia game. Since there are so many ideas that you can use for this Halloween party theme, I've put together a separate article on this: Pumpkin Party Games

Of course, if you are having games you will need to hand out prizes to the winners (in the case of young children - everyone should be a "winner"). Also, at the end of the party when young ones are ready to go home, Halloween party favors are a must. You can find some wonderful ideas here to help you out.

Food and Drink

A party just isn't a party without some refreshments. For a pumpkin party theme, focus on pumpkin related and orange colored foods and drinks. Roasted pumpkin seeds and pumpkin pie are usually the first two things to come to mind, but there are many more options available. You can find a nice listing of pumpkin party Halloween recipes here, along with a menu idea for a sit down dinner, if you choose to have one.

The above should help you pull together your pumpkin party for this Halloween. Some additional suggestions follow that could be incorporated into your theme or as a more quiet get-together with family and friends.

Plan a Pumpkin Movie Night

Having a pumpkin party movie night is a great way to spend time with young children, family members and close friends. You could rent some DVD's that feature pumpkins or jack-o-lanterns in them such as the following (these are mainly cartoons - so they are good choices for the entire family to watch):

It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Spookley the Square Pumpkin

The Dancing Pumpkin

Squashed

The Haunted Pumpkin of Sleepy Hollow

There's even some interesting DVD's that shows kids what goes on in a pumpkin patch during the fall season and another presenting fantastic pumpkin carving techiniques. Don't want to carve any pumpkins? There's even a DVD that will put a jack-o-lantern on your TV screen. Check them out:

Pumpkin Season

A Complete Guide to Carving the Perfect Pumpkin

iScream- The Video JackoLantern

Story Time With The Kids

Halloween is all about scaring ourselves silly with ghost stories, but how about we change that a bit and have an evening of pumpkin stories instead? The following links will take you to a listing of book choices for a pumpkin story telling evening.

Pumpkin Stories For Ages 4 to 8

Ages 9 Through 12

Books For Teens

For All Ages

Articles for a Halloween Pumpkin Party and Related Activities

Pumpkin Invitations For Your Halloween Party
The pumpkin invitations that are featured here are a perfect compliment to our Paranoid Pumpkin Party theme.

Halloween Pumpkin Decorations
Pumpkins pumpkins everywhere! What would a Halloween pumpkin party be without decorations? Check out these ideas!

Halloween Pumpkin Party Games
It's orange, it's round, and sometimes it has an eerie face that glows. If your Halloween party theme embraces these large orange objects, you'll need plenty of pumpkin party games and activities to liven up the evening.

Pumpkin Favors For Your Halloween Pumpkin Party
If you've planned to hold a pumpkin party, then you are certainly going to need related pumpkin favors and prizes. Here are some simple, but fun ideas, that are easy to craft and present to your guests.

Pumpkin Party Halloween Food: Pick Your Recipes
The following is a list of pumpkin recipes and orange-flavored/colored foods which you can easily prepare for your upcoming Halloween bash.

Toddler Pumpkin Activities for Halloween
"Here are some wonderful pumpkin activities and super simple craft projects that you can do with your little toddler this Halloween.

Making a Jack-o-Lantern Light Show
Bring Halloween to the whole neighborhood with your own special and unique Jack-o-Lantern Light Show.

Halloween Jack-o-Lanterns: Where Did They Come From?
Halloween jack-o-lanterns have been associated with this October holiday since the mid-eighteen hundreds. The tradition of carving a pumpkin and placing a candle in it began nearly 2000 years ago in Ireland.

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