Teen Halloween Party -14yr- Mini Haunted House

For my fourteenth birthday, I decided to choose a theme I hadn't done in a few years: HALLOWEEN! With so many ideas on the internet and in magazines, it was easy to plan! My budget was $150.00, already having much of the needed decorations.   

INVITATIONS: I wanted a creative, yet cheap, way to announce my party. We decided to look online for the Final Destination" logo. Once we found a good one that was not pixelated I edited it to say: YOUR FINAL DESTINATION SHOULD BE.... _____'s PARTY!" with all the standard information on the back. I mounted these on black cardstock and passed them out to friends in person at school. 

DECORATIONS: Around two months before i scoured store after store looking for cheap yet chic Halloween decorations. My main decoration was SPIDERWEBS! Those little bags of WHITE webbing work perfectly stretched around bushes swingsets and trees. This party took place in my backyard. I bought a few plastic severed "arms" and "legs" to float around in our pool.

We turned the pool light to the red setting to give an eerie glow. IF you don't have a pool try strategically placing bones/limbs in the ground sticking up at odd angles. We have woods behind our home so we placed a few random glow sticks in the ground and had three "tombstones" (available at a party supplies store) peeking out behind trees. If you wish to create your own tombstones cut an upside down U shape piece of cardboard spraypaint gray and write a name/date on them.  

ACTIVITIES: We hung a white sheet up and projected a Halloween movie from a rented projector. Many libraries/rental services have these available. We chose to show the original Halloween movie. It was a hit!!

We also created a mini haunted house. We hung up sheets of black plastic (available at a hardware store or use trashbags taped together) to create one U shaped passageway. In one "leg" of the passage we hung up glow sticks with black twine. We also had random strings of twine hanging down to create the effect of walking through spiderwebs. Hanging down on the sides of the passage were colorful "Jason" masks.

Ours glowed in the dark but you can easily create that effect by painting with glowing paint. Everythings a Dollar stores usually have glow sticks CHEAP!! We got 5 dozen for five dollars. We had baskets of left over glowsticks around our backyard for party favors. The other passage was filled with hardware tools like drills dull hand saws and the likes. Throughout the haunted house I had my brother and a few friends dressup and jump out at people! Other than those two activities we just hung out around the yard.  

COSTUMES: We put on the invite that Halloween costume attire was required. Some guests went ALL OUT with their costumes while some just put a wig on.  

PARTY SNACKS: Foodwise we went completely casual. We had a few baskets of chips and salsa along with mini-meatballs. Two-liters of soda were our drinks of choice.  

CAKE: We bought two cookie cakes at Walmart and personalized them with my name in icing. Cookie cake is so much easier to deal with than regular cake in cutting it eating it and decorating it. Its less messy too!   I hope these ideas will help you to host a fun Halloween party. Just remember to have fun and everything will turn out great!  Happy partying!"