Halloween Activities for Fun, Food, and Frighteningly Good Times

Here you'll find Halloween activities that will take care of your costume needs, as well as Halloween kids activities for before or after trick-or-treating, and recipes for the yukiest Halloween foods around.

For a lot of families Halloween is the most fun holiday they celebrate. You can dress up, have parties, go trick-or-treating and decorate to your hearts content. Even though the cost doesn't quite stack up to Christmas, Halloween can still be expensive when you consider the cost of costumes, candy and decorations.

Halloween can definitely be frugal and stay fun if you get creative and use some of the ideas and tips we have listed here for you. Halloween has been a big deal for my family since I was trick-or-treating, so a lot of the things you'll find here are things I've done with my own kids, or we've experienced at parties and Halloween gatherings over the years.

Gross Halloween Foods

Around this time of year many grocery stores will sell familiar products with a Halloween flair or sold in Halloween packaging and charge a premium for it. An oreo with an orange middle is still an Oreo cookie. But if you purchase a regular bag of Oreos, or even better; a generic brand, you can make a some Dirt Cups, which I guaranty will get you more "Oohs" and "Ahhs" than a plain old orange Oreo. Find out how to make Dirt cups and lots of other creepy and gross halloween food here.

Serving disgusting but delicious Halloween food doesn't have to be difficult or expensive. Every day, inexpensive foods can become stomach turning, yet delicious creations. Bloody Scab Snacks, Barbeque Roach Eggs with Pig Snouts, Maggot Stew, and Gourmet Stuffed Roaches are just a few of the delicacies you'll find in our collection of gross recipes for Halloween.

Presentation is everything. So set the mood for your fine buffet by purchasing just a few really good props that you can use every year. Add something new to your collection each Halloween, then use Stores like Walmart, Family Dollar, Dollar Tree or your local discount store to purchase things like plastic bugs, skeletons, skulls, witches brooms, and grave stones to decorate your table and around your house.

Inexpensive plastic table covers can be draped on walls and also used in costume ideas. Those black, red and orange sheets of plastic can do a lot more than just cover your table. Cover your every day drapes with black to spook up the room. Or drape them over furniture and add scary props, candles, and spider webs to turn your home into a haunted house. Use them in costume design or even in your outside decorations.

Bring in some fall leaves, twigs and branches from outside. Arrange them in a container then decorate with spider webs, plastic bugs and worms.

Costumes: Make Them Yourself for Less

One of our favorite Halloween activities is to make our own costumes. We haven't purchased costumes in years. When my kids were little I used to sew costumes, but who has that kind of time anymore? And fabric isn't cheap.

If you've got a little time and you want to give your kids a costume with flair, but don't want to pay big money for flimsy fabrics and uncomfortable masks, use some of the clever ideas we found for easy homemade Halloween costumes.

Check out the Puppy costume. I came up with this in the 11th hour for my son's school play and it cost me less than $8 and took just one hour to create.

Oh yeah, and no sewing required. He liked it so much he's going to wear it this Halloween.

Teen costumes don't have to cost much either, but if your teens insist on purchasing something have them buy face paint, or a prop like a hat, cane, sword, or pitchfork, then let them create the costume using some ideas from our cool Halloween costumes page. We even have ideas of last resort for when you are short on time and money.

Your home is a treasure trove of possibilities for Halloween activities, and especially costume making. Take a look at some of our easy to make Halloween costume ideas to spark your imagination. Use one of our ideas or come up with something completely different right out of your own closet.

Add the finishing touches with a Halloween make-up job. Take a look at some of our face painting examples to get some inspiration. We've also got some face painting tips from a pro if you decide you'd like to give it a try.

Halloween Party Activities

If Trick-or-Treating is a thing of the past for your family. - For many it's just become too risky. You can still have a blast and not spend lots of cash by throwing a Halloween party for your kids and a few of their friends. Again, using the Dollar stores for decorations and things like black and orange party plates, forks, spoons and napkins will save you big bucks over the party stores. If you don't have a lot of time choose from the simplest of our gross halloween foods then round out the fare with some ideas from our kids party food page.

Have a costume contest, tell scary stories, and try some of our Halloween party games for kids. For kids, learning how to make caramel apples is one of the classic Halloween activities. Make them during the party as a take home treat, or make them ahead of time. Serve as "Poison Apples".

Some families even throw a small bash right before Trick-or-Treating then everyone heads out as a group, or right after. But if you're going to throw a longer party and need even more games, just check out all of our fun party games. By changing the props, rules, or even the name of the game any of these games can become Halloween party games, and Halloween activities.

In the coming months we'll be adding even more Halloween activities to the site, but if you've got some frugal Halloween activities up your sleeve, please share. Contact me and I'll add it to the mix.