Hi! I love Halloween! It's such fun planning our big annual open-house party, decorating, buying treats, dressing up! The weather is great! Pumpkin pie! Such a great time of the year! I wanted to share with you, some of the things that we do at "The House of Lee". 

Spiderwebs, inside and out! You can never have enough of those.. white, black, glow in the dark! They are so stretchy, sticky, and easy to use. Every web needs spiders from tiny ones to giant ones (I like a giant one on the roof!) and throw in a couple of bugs here and there, for their dinner! Bugs are creepy, you can use alot of these in decorating!

Lighting... green, orange, purple, or black lightbulbs. There are even lightbulbs with designs painted on them, that cast pictures on the walls! Strobe lights... neon lights! Candles create an awesome atmosphere, shadows, flickering light... There are so many great candleholders to choose from, depending on your theme. Go all out, the more, the better! I also use floodlights with purple and green bulbs to focus on specific areas (I'll elaborate later).

Pumpkins! Anyone can carve a pumpkin! You can design your own, traditional Jack-O-Lantern face, or buy an inexpensive book with patterns. They go from easy to very intricate. Some of my favorites have included castles, dragons, and skeletons. I have a life-size skull that holds a tealight or votive candle and I always have that one on a small table on the porch, with a beautiful black lace tablecloth. You can get white pumpkins and carve a skull face onto it, to get the same effect. Our friends have a pumpkin carving family night. Each member carves their own, unique pattern. They put on a scary movie or good haunting music, and have at it! All the pumpkins are proudly displayed, leading up the steps to their porch.

Fog! I love those fog machines.. I put one on the porch, and one at the graveyard and it is very eerie with that fog rolling in, swirling around. The lights really add to that ambience!  

Graveyard... I have a small fenced garden at the side of my house that makes a perfect one! There's a 3'x9' garden that makes a great grave for a life-size skeleton to lay in. I add tombstones, skull heads and skeletal hands coming out, various size rats, snakes, and frogs. I have it heavily cobwebbed, with plenty of spiders! There are bats hanging down and and several smaller 3ft. skeletons hanging around. Lots of bugs and really big ones!

 Every graveyard needs ghosts! I made an awesome one with an angel gown I found. It had long white flared sleeves, and was covered with a white netting. I took a 5' skeleton (flat, plastic, glow in the dark one) and attached its' shoulders and neck to a wooden hanger, then dressed it. I added a 3D zombie face, behind it (You can also use a 3D skeleton mask). I attached a battery operated 5 light reflector that flashes off and on, rotating where the lights are. Then I took a large square of cheesecloth (gauze material) and placed over his head. He hangs from a tree, and the wind really blows him around! The flickering lights give him an awesome, spooky appearance! 

A graveyard or garden needs a scarecrow! I have a hand-made, 5'10" life-size one named Suzanna, currently for sale at my store "Rock On by Audi". She looks great, sitting on a big bale of hay, or standing there by the garden gate. Scarecrows are plentiful, this time of year. You can get all types of them. I recommend making one.  A simple idea is to get some old clothes... they especially like flannel! Stuff them with straw, old rags, wadded up newspaper, anything you want to use, depending how long you want to keep it, and your storage space availability. If you use rags or paper, make sure to add straw coming out of the sleeves, neck, legs, and shirt or dress. For a head, you can use a pumpkin (careful if it's carved... Scarecrows don't appreciate fire!) or you could make a papier mache head... balloons work great! That's another fun project for parents and kids!Add a stick to the head, going down into the body to make it stay put. Add boots, stuffed garden gloves, a straw hat, corncob pipe, or anything else you can imagine! I put one of those floodlights I mentioned, right here at the garden!

Life size dolls... I have alot of them and they have really changed through the years! I always have a different one standing by the front door. My husband is so clever... he ties nylon fishing line to the door, runs it up through a hook on the ceiling, then down to the wrist of the doll. When I open my door to greet the guests, 3 things happen, simultaneously. A bat drops down on one side, a snake rises from the floor, and the doll turns and raises her arm toward you. I get alot of shrieks from parents and kids! Also on the porch, I have an old wicker rocking chair that a Skeleton Mom sits on. She holds a life-size baby skeleton, loosely wrapped in a baby blanket, holding her bottle of blood in tiny hands. She has the cutest pink headband. She also wears a tiny bib. Standing next to her is a 5',  3D skeleton, dressed in boys clothing. (Shorts look really good, they show his bony legs!) 

There are dolls throughout the yard! The witch hangs suspended, appearing to be flying on her awesome broom. We ran a fishing line from the neighbors house to ours. Then we hung the witch from the line. We attached the broom with more fishing line coming down from both ends, and position her legs over the broom so she is sitting. She likes to ride side-saddle! Her hands are tied on to the broom, so she is holding on! At the end of the broom sits her black cat and a little mouse, who all love to ride with her! She has an owl, crow, and raven that are all positioned near her.  

At one tree is a currently 20' head to tail Medusa. She is awesome, towering high above you, looking down with her snake-filled hair, clawed hands, and rattlesnake tail, stretching and slithering out under her. I have a rubber chicken that I like to hang from the same tree, I don't like my dolls to be hungry, Halloween night!

The Vampire hangs out with lots of different size bats, in another area of the yard. We have a "Pumpkin Tree" (I know pumpkins don't grow on trees, but here, they do! It's based on Ray Bradburys book, "The Halloween Tree", and there are lots of little pumpkins hanging down all over. I use the little plastic treat containers, but you can also use plastic pumpkin bags or have the kids make crafty ones. Another doll hangs out here. These are some other areas that I position floodlights at!

Last year, we decided to have a round table outside. We put a black tablecloth over it and 4 chairs. At each chair sat a Wizard, Werewolf, Skeleton (Dad, playing w/ the guys), and a really big scary clown! The clown also had balloons in his hand. We set up a poker game with cards face down, at each creatures hand. They played for bodyparts! We used a big glass jar filled with ears, eyeballs, noses, tongues, brain, heart, fingers... you get the idea. There were also bugs in there, of course! I made a game of this one for the children at our party. All of the hands were awesome winners, but only 1 can win! They wrote their name on a piece of paper, who they thought had the winning cards, and for another game, on same paper, how many spiders were in the plastic skull. These were put in a plastic pumpkin. Before they left, I looked at their note. If they correctly guessed the winning hand, they received their choice of a gift from the big coffin grab-bag. By the way, it was the Wizard...can you guess why? Correct # of spiders also won a gift. The name was put back in the pumpkin for a drawing at the end of the night, and a prize was given to the lucky recipient. They didn't need to be there to win! Our party is an Open-House, so we can accomodate lots of guests. They come, eat, drink, and be merry... then go on to their Trick-or-Treating and other festivities, as other guests drop in.

Another game idea is with the dart board, I took a picture of a vampire rising out of his coffin and taped it to the board. It was the perfect picture! The heart was right at the bullseye. It was meant to be the closest to bullseye wins, but we had alot of gifts and so Every child got many chances to throw the dart, and only had to hit the board to get a prize... yea, we were easy!!!

Music is a big key element! We play the usual spooky stuff outside, groans, moans, shrieks, screams, chains rattling, howls, laughter,and so forth! Inside, we played various tapes that we've recorded in previous years. All different songs with Halloween theme. There are alot of them! "Bad Moon Rising", "I put A Spell On You", Monster Mash, "Put the Lime in the Coconut", "Voodoo Child", "Waiting for The Worms", "Witchy Woman", "Ghost Train", "Don't Fear the Reaper".... There are so many more, but you get the idea!

Food! I make a big variety of food for the table, and have it all presented in different containers. Plastic pumpkins, skeleton cake pans, plastic and other cauldrons, little treat cups, metal Halloween dishes, skeletal goblets, there are so many ideas you can see and do! I serve "Jack-O-Lantern Pumpkin Cheese Balls" with assorted crackers and bread (You can find this recipe on one of my blogs!). I make "Graveyard Grub", "Spiderweb Dip", "Spooky Corn Chips", "Witches Brooms", "Eyes of Newts", "Candied Popcorn", and "Pumpkin Soup", served in a hollowed pumpkin! Later, I will write another guide and give you these delicious and frightening recipes! 

Drinks! We have a cocktail Carousel, and a big punch bowl for the kids, and non-drinkers. We also serve Hot Chocolate with floating marshmallow "eyeballs"! The punch bowl is a big plastic clear one with "pockets" all around. I fill it with snakes, bats, frogs, rats, bugs, and so on. They can be seen all around the outside of bowl. I make a nice punch and add a frozen zombie face floating in the center. I make several of these out of 7-up or gingerale and add food color. As they melt, I add a new one, and it doesn't water down the punch! I also have little frozen bats and pumpkins that I float in there (plastic ones you can buy and freeze, they don't melt... just keep it cold! For the adults, I have a drink menu with names like: "Bloody Lily (or Yvonne)"or "Virgin Bloody Lily", "Medusas' Revenge", "Wodans' Ale", "Willows Brew", and other names for drinks that compliment the dolls themes. You can make up anything that your mind can imagine! 

Now you have some great ideas to begin your own decorating and party planning! I hope this guide proves useful to you and I hope you have alot of fun with it!!! Even if you don't incorporate any of these ideas, I hope you enjoyed reading this, and sharing how we celebrate Halloween at "The House of Lee". 

HAPPY HALLOWEEEEEEEEEN!!!

Love, Audi