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SPOOKY TALES
What you'll need:
24 index cards, 3 X 5
pencil
paper
watch with a second hand
1. Write one word on each index card from the following list:
Dracula, Frankenstein, wolfman, witch, warlock, stranger, boy, old woman, girl, countryside, haunted house, graveyard, castle, slingshot, stick, shovel, rope, car, money, computer jewelry, robbery, attack, accident, lies.
2. Shuffle the cards.
How to Play:
1. Choose a leader to pick 6 cards and turn them face up on a flat surface.
2. When everyone has had a chance to see the cards, the leader begins timing. Everyone has one minute to think of a tale using as many of the words in the list as possible.
3. When the time is up, the players tell their tales. The leader keeps score and gives 1 point for each word from the list included and 1 point for the best story.
4. A new leader then reshuffles the cards. The game is repeated until everyone has a chance to be leader.
5. The player with the most points wins. In case of a tie, the last leader removes Dracula and another card from the stack, scrambles them,and offers them face down to the players. The one who picks Dracula is the winner.
MONSTER MOUTHS
Here's a super easy and yummy Halloween snack idea.
What You'll Need:
Green apples, sliced
Peanut butter
Candy Corn
What To Do:
For each mouth, spread peanut butter on an apple slice. Add the candy corn as teeth and top with another apple slice spread with peanut butter.
For a pretty table decoration, put tea lights in hollowed-out mini pumpkins or apples.
EAT EM UP GHOSTS
1 bag of marshmallows (10 oz.)
1/4 cup margarine or butter
6 cups crisp rice cereal
12 ounces vanilla flavored candy coating, melted
Black licorice
Chocolate sprinkles
Miniature semi-sweet chocolate pieces
1. In a large pot combine marshmallows and margarine. Cook and stir over medium low heat until mixture is melted. Gradually stir in cereal until well
combined.
2. Use 1/2 to 1 cup of the cereal mixture per ghost to form into ghost shapes. Set aside to cool completely. 3. Dip each ghost shape into melted candy coating.
4. Use pieces of licorice, chocolate sprinkles, and/or chocolate pieces for the eyes, nose, eyebrows, and mouth.
Makes 9-12 ghosts
BOUNCING EYEBALLS
These are easy to make and you or your young guests will love creating them.
What You'll Need:
Ping Pong Balls
Black and Blue fine point permanent markers
Red Ultra Fine Point Permanent Markers
1/4" to 1" Round lids or something round to trace on
Pencil
1. With the pencil, draw an eyeball on each ping-pong ball by tracing around the lids. Or you can freehand.
2. Color the pupil either blue or black. Use the red marker to draw the blood shots on the eyeball.
SIMPLE GHOSTS
Here's an easy way to add some spooky ghosts around your house without spending much at all. Pick up a few scraps of white toile or netting. Use these as ghosts to hang in dark corners.
GREEN GLOW GROG
2 liter chilled Mountain Dew
1/2 gallon lime sherbet
Gutted pumpkin
1. Allow sherbet to soften for about 1 hour in bottom of punch bowl.
2. Pour Mountain Dew over and stir until all sherbet is dissolved.
3. Serve in a large well-cleaned pumpkin with a great face painted on it!
You can serve this directly in the pumpkin or in a bowl placed inside the pumpkin.
For quick and spooky fun, cut out paper ghosts and bats and outline them with glow-in-the-dark markers. Hang them from the ceiling with black thread.
EYEBALLS ON THE ROCKS
12 Radishes
1 7 Oz Jar pimento-stuffed Olives
1 46 Oz Can tomato juice
Prepare these bloody eyeballs the day before you plan to serve them.
1. Peel 12 radishes, leaving thin streaks of red skin on them.
2. Using the tip of the vegetable peeler or small knife, carefully scoop out a small hole in each radish.
3. Stuff a green olive, pimento side out, in each hole. Place 1 radish in each section of an empty ice cube tray.
4. Fill the tray with water and freeze overnight.
5. Pour tall glasses 3/4 full of tomato juice and add a pair of eyeballs to each glass.
GORY MONSTER DIP
1 cup dairy sour cream
1 cup mayonnaise
1 – 1-1/4-ounce envelope taco seasoning mix
1 large avocado, peeled and seeded
¼ cup salsa
2 tbsp lemon juice
½ tsp bottled hot pepper sauce
1-16 ounce can refried beans
¼ tsp bottled hot pepper sauce
1-1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese (12 oz.)
1 or 2 tomatoes
1 – 4-1/2 oz. can chopped ripe olives, well drained (optional)
Tortilla chips
1. In a small bowl, stir together the sour cream, mayonnaise, and taco seasoning mix. Set aside.
2. In another bowl, mash the avocado with a fork. Stir in the salsa, lemon juice, and the ¼ teaspoon bottled hot pepper sauce. Set aside.
3. Stir together the refried beans and the ¼ teaspoon hot pepper sauce.
4. In a 2-quart rectangular glass baking dish, spread the bean mixture, then the avocado mixture and the sour cream.
5. Sprinkle the cheese over the sour cream mixture. Top with the chopped tomatoes and sprinkle with olives. Cover and refrigerate overnight. Serve with tortilla chips.
SPOOKY SPINNING GAME
For this game, make a spinner from a large circle of poster board. Divide the circle into 16 even segments and write a dare, such as "Howl like a werewolf" or "Make 5 scary faces," in each segment. Cut out a spinner, such as a bat, from poster board. Punch a hole through the center of the circle and through one end of the spinner; attach the spinner to the circle with a brass clasp, making sure the spinner can move freely. Have little goblins take turns spinning and performing their dare.
Here's another great idea for decorating the kids table at your Thanksgiving dinner:
Go out and pick the best looking leaves. Wash and dry the leaves. Cover the kids table with white butcher paper and glue the leaves all over the table.
This could work at the adult table too!
BATTY WORD GAME
Before the event, cut out large bat shapes from white or colored paper. Write a list of spooky Halloween words, with the letters scrambled, on each bat. At the party, hand out the bats and have each guest try to unscramble as many words as they can.
Decorate your house with pumpkin spiders. Paint faces on tiny pumpkins and glue on pipe cleaners for legs.
SWAMP SOUP
1 Celery heart with whitish Leafy stalks
1 small Jar artichoke hearts
1 can (10 1/2oz) chicken with rice Soup
Blue and green food coloring
1 cup Fish shaped crackers
1. Chop up the celery heart into small pieces. Pull apart the surrounding whitish leafy stalks, leaving them long and stringy. Set aside.
2. Drain the jar of artichoke hearts and chop into inch squares.
3. Prepare soup according to directions. Add the celery and artichokes and heat until soup comes to a boil.
4. Turn heat to low and carefully add two or three drops each green and blue food coloring until the soup reaches an appropriately murky color.
5. Carefully ladle the hot soup into individual bowls and sprinkle a quarter cup of crackers on top of each one.
Here's a creative and fun way to decorate the kids table at Thanksgiving:
Cover the kids table with a large sheet of white butcher paper. Stencil the outlines of turkeys all over the butcher paper and put out crayons for the kids to color the turkeys during dinner.
Use your favorite Halloween cookie cutters to cut scary shapes from cocktail bread and use the shapes for dipping.