Hope everyone had a great Halloween and thank you ....

for all the great posts, tutorials and inspiration. If not for this forum we would have celebrated this Halloween doing all the usual traditional things we do such as the pumpkin carving, apple bobbing, special dinner and a scary movie night. I thought this year, especially with a limited budget and time, it would be more of the same but after lurking here for quite a while, there was no way I was going to be content with that this year! The Carnevil theme really struck a chord with me so we ended up raiding our recycle bins, repurposed every item I could, my kids were worried if they stood still long enough they would be repurposed as props! I may not have got everything done that I originally wanted to but my family and friends appreciated what was done and the effort that went into it. We didn't decorate outside this year (it totally poured down anyway) but we did decorate the glass panes in our front door, which stood out as no one else in our street bothered with so much as that and got quite a few TOTs.

Our party was on Halloween night and although it was a small one we had an absolute blast. We kept the games kid friendly and fitting with the carnival theme, we had hook a duck, fish bowl toss, etc but the most fun was a Tempt Your Fate game with fates hidden inside balloons (as suggested by someone here). Something that was the cause of much unexpected hilarity was a Halloween quiz with an adult and kid version, also the kids and their friends voted the Haunted Hunt (like a Scavenger Hunt) we organised a huge success. The food I just kept totally simple and again in keeping with the Carnival theme made a pan of chilli, hotdogs, buns and sides along with popcorn, candy floss. Also done trays of pizza, twice baked potatoes, a large dark chocolate cake, a white chocolate cake and some cupcakes along with a couple of jugs of Halloween punch, which turned out to be pretty lethal, just as well there was a non-alcohol version too!

I can hardly believe this Halloween is over and so can't wait to do it all over again next year. My daughter after declaring me totally nuts with this year's Carnevil theme got totally onboard with it and has now announced she wants us to do a Twisted Tales theme for next year. If anyone has any ideas how on how to turn my kitchen into the witch's cottage from Hansel and Gretel I would love to hear them, or any other suggestions.