Kids love Halloween parties. However you do not need to spend too much to make a spooky party a success. The temptation is to buy a lot of decorations and accessories whereas making your own can save a large amount of money.

Even the invitations can be homemade. Cut out a circle of black card, stick some wobble eyes on it and attach eight pipe cleaners to resemble legs and you have a fun spider invite. If you are not feeling too artistic you can use some purple card and stick some shiny stars to it.

Decorating your house can also add to the atmosphere. Cut out bat shapes from black card and hang them from light fittings and doorways. Putting the cut out bats as well on the lamp shades will result in spooky shapes around the room. Cover the furniture with white sheets which will not only enhance the atmosphere but will also protect from sticky fingers.

One of the most effective Halloween decorations is the fake spiders web. You can buy this in many shops and it initially resembles candy floss. However once you pull it apart and drape it over everything it looks very effective and is not too hard to clean up. Stretch it across windows for a very effective look.

Do not though fall into the trap of carving a turnip as they are not the easiest thing to hollow out. Use the more traditional pumpkin as it is much easier to scoop out and can be used to make pumpkin soup.

One of the fun things to do if you are planning a sit down meal is to have edible place cards. This can be used at any party and consists of slices of gingerbread cake with the names of your guests written on with piped icing.

To make the meal to have a spooky theme try to adapt each course eg. serve the pumpkin soup serve with bread that you have cut into star shapes. This is easily done with a large cookie cutter.

The traditional Halloween games are always fun to do yet do have a slightly messy theme so ensure that you have a good level of protection. String up some apples and dip them into clear runny honey and get the guests to try to eat the apple without using their hands. The traditional dipping is treacle yet not too many people are fond of it. Have an old shirt that they can put on to ensure that their clothes do not get messy.

Another fun game is a variation of a very traditional game. Bobbing for apples is a very popular games where you fill a basin with water and have a number of apples in it. The players then have to try to pick up an apple without using their hands.

As this normally involves picking the apple up with their teeth it means that many people end up submerging their whole head in water. This is though something that may not be best to encourage at a childrens party so a fun thing is to replace the water with icing sugar or flour. If they are attempting this after the honey apples game then expect a lot of mess.