Create Your Own Spooktacular Haunted House
Trick-or-treating gets boring and sometimes Halloween parties just aren’t satisfying. Try something different this Halloween that will wow your friends and make them scream in terror. Creating your own spooktacular haunted house is fun and easy to do. So, get some friends together and have them help set up.
Start by opening the doors, so that all the rooms are easily accessible. It is best to set up two fog machines for each floor of the house. The fog will add an eerie feeling to the scene. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. Most local party stores will sell inexpensive fog machines.
To separate rooms, hang up black sheets in the doorways (any kind will do). They must be black to allow for optimal darkness. Do not have the sheets go all the way down to the floor. Fog must be able to enter each room through the bottom.
Set up scary decorations with different colored lights. Green and red lights work the best to give a spooky effect. Have the lights pointed at the scariest decorations so that they will grab the guest’s attention. Have a friend be there in a scary costume to jump out from behind and spook people.
Here are some frightening room ideas to add different themes to the haunted house:
Vampires Den
Make a coffin out of cardboard and paint it black. Have one of your friends put on a vampire costume and lie in the coffin, as if sleeping peacefully. Shine a colored light down on the coffin. When the guests get close to the coffin, have the friend jump up and give spook them. It is also a good idea to have some fake bats hanging from the ceiling.
Crazy Scientists Lab
To transform a kitchen into a mad lab, get out some jars and beakers if you have them. Fill each jar and beaker with vinegar and add different food colorings. Put fake eyeballs and brains into the jars. You can also make glowing water boil on the stove. Simply cut open several highlighter markers and let them soak in a pot of water. Let the water boil to give it a bubbling effect. Then, shine a black light down on the stove. This will look like a mystical science potion.
Mummy Graveyard
Make a bone-chilling graveyard to spook your guests. You can make your own graveyards out of cardboard or buy some at a Halloween store. Place them around a pitch-dark room with a fog machine. Then, create some mummies by making your average scarecrow and wrapping it completely in toilet paper. Have a few dim colored lights to allow guests to see the room.
These are just a few room ideas. You can create your own themes and do whatever you want to make the house different levels of frightening. If you have fun with it and be creative, it is sure to give your friends a night to remember.
Being Green for Halloween
Let’s face it: humans consume a lot, and Halloween is one of the worst offending holidays of the year. Costumes are thrown away or disregarded after a single use. There are candy wrappers for each individual piece of candy. Plus, decorations are made of plastic and chemicals and all sorts of non-biodegradable materials. The list goes on and on. But this year, we challenge you to go green for Halloween.
Natural Party Decorations
Instead of opting for the usual Halloween decorations,use natural decorations, like twigs, sticks, leaves, and other things you can find outdoors. All of these things can easily be thrown back outside after the holiday, or tossed into a decomposing pile. Plus, cash stays in your wallet, because you’re not blowing loads of money on useless decorations that just sit around in your garage.
Reusable Candy Bags
Sure, your kid wants that fancy candy bag that features a huge Transformers logo, but do you really want to spend that kind of money? A pillow case is just as good, and it holds a whole lot more candy than those dinky bags you buy in stores. With a pillow case, when you’re done with the Halloween evening, the bag goes back on a pillow and life continues. No spending money, no worrying about what to do with that bag afterwards.
Create Your Own Costumes
If you’ve purchased a Halloween costume from a retail store, you know the quality is horrible. Seams rip while you’re still getting the costume on, or strings snap and you’re left with a flimsy mask that falls off. Do yourself a favor and make your own costume. Those big Halloween companies want you to buy their stuff, and they’ll try to convince you that it’s better, but can anything really be better than building your own costume? You made it, so it’s unique and tailored to your body.
As we think up more tips, we’ll keep you posted.
Stay cheap, my friends!
Halloween Trivia
So you think you know Halloween, but let’s be honest, how much Halloween do you really know? If you want to impress your friends and family at the next Halloween party, give these tidbits and facts a quick read over. Remember a few and then bust them out when your guests least expect it.
- Approximately 93% of all American children under the age of 12 will go trick-or-treating.
- Right behind Christmas, Halloween is the second most profitable holiday.
- Over $2.5 billion are spent annually on Halloween decorations, while an average $1.5 billion are spent on Halloween costumes.
- The most popular colors for Halloween are orange and black, because black represents death and orange is a classic color of autumn.
- On average, 86% of Americans decorate their homes in Halloween decorations.
- When asked, 90% of parents admitted to stealing candy from their children’s candy piles.
- In the United States, $2 billion of Halloween candy is sold annually. In addition, more than 35 million pounds of candy corn are produced per year, which equates to 9 billion pieces of candy corn.
- The first city in the United States to celebrate Halloween was Anoka, Minnesota, in 1921.
- Roughly 10% of pet owners dress their pets in Halloween costumes.
- The first Halloween card ever made was in the 1920s.
Check back later for more Halloween trivia. We’re constantly looking to give you things to talk about, and every day is something new. See again next time!
Cheap Creeps, out.
Fun Facts From Halloween 2011
The National Retail Federation (NRF) has been surveying Americans and their Halloween spending habits for the past nine years. In 2011, they found that a record-breaking 161 million Americans planned on celebrating the holiday, which translates to seven out of ten Americans, or approximately 68% of the total population.
In addition, according to the NRF, the average American spent $72.31 on props, Halloween costumes, and candy. The total amount spent was expected to reach an outstanding $6.86 billion dollars – yes, billions – which was an increase from the previous year’s $5.8 billion.
Here’s a quick breakdown of what the average American spent money on for Halloween 2010:
- Decorations: $19.79
- Invitations: $4.96
- Candy: $21.05
- Halloween costumes: $26.52
On the topic of costumes, the NRF found that approximately 43% of Americans dressed up for Halloween 2011, with undead and zombies as the most popular of all costume themes.
Here are the top 10 adult Halloween costumes for 2011:
- Witch
- Pirate
- Vampire
- Zombie
- Batman (Any character)
- Cat
- Vixen
- Ghost
- Nurse
- General scary costume/mask
Here are the top 10 child Halloween costumes for 2011:
- Princess
- Witch
- Spider-Man
- Pirate
- Pumpkin
- Fairy
- Action/Superhero
- Batman / Vampire (A tie)
- Disney Princess / Zombie (Another tie)
- Star Wars (Any character)
As for people dressing up their pets, 2011 saw approximately 10% of all costumed pets dressed as pumpkins, with devil costumes coming in second at 8%.
Frightful Truth Behind the Pumpkin
Pumpkins are much more than orange props that eventually mold and smell worse than raw sewage. In fact, pumpkins have a rich history, one that has become entwined with Halloween. But what do you really know about the pumpkin? For example, did you know a pumpkin is actually a fruit? That’s right – not a vegetable.
In addition, some old wives’ tales claim a pumpkin can cure freckles and snake bites.(They don’t.) As for the original colonists in the New World, they would carve open the pumpkin, scoop out its seeds, and fill the insides with honey, milk, and spices. This delicious treat would then be baked over hot coals, so the flavors mixed with the pumpkin’s delicious flesh. Some claim this is the origin of the pumpkin pie!
The actual “pumpkin” name come about during the 1500s, when Jacques Cartier was exploring the St. Lawrence region of North America. Cartier stumbled upon the pumpkin and called them “gros melons,” which translated into English as “pomions.” Later, the name evolved to pumpkin, and it hasn’t changed since.
Without the addition of spices and sugar, a pumpkin is a rather boring and not-too-tasty meal. However, the pumpkin’s flesh is actually quite nutritious, containing almost not fat, sodium, or calories, but packed with loads of fiber. Pumpkins are also stuffed with iron, protein, potassium, and Vitamins A and B. But here’s the kicker: a pumpkin is actually made from 90% water.
Although pumpkins have been growing in North America for nearly five thousand years, most of the modernday pumpkins are Connecticut field pumpkins. This breed of pumpkin is planted between May and June, and these pumpkins take approximately three to four months to grow.
Lastly, the recorded largest baked pumpkin pie weighed just over a ton, which is roughly 2,000 pounds. With that much pumpkin pie, you better have a lot of whipped cream on hand.
We Are Cheap Creeps!
Welcome to the Cheap Creeps! We’re extreme Halloween fans and we’re aiming at bringing you, our readers, the best creepy goodies that we can find. Check back often for more ghoulish news and Halloween merch!
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