It’s time to get into some serious Halloween party preparations. Halloween is fast approaching and you need to sort out your guest list and complete the party invitations or you’ll end up alone. So how do you make the best impression on your friends and family in order to convince them that YOURS is the only party they should be attending this year?
In our articles linked to pirate and princess party invitations, we’ve tried to convey that the party begins when you receive the invitation itself. You should convey excitement and get your guest to ask for the nearest pen to respond with. Poorly thought out invitations indicate that the rest of your party skills will follow the same pattern. And fancy, expensive invitations don’t have to be anything other than fancy, so let’s look at some basic principles for Halloween invitations. The most important thing is to understand the general theme. If you’ve chosen Classic Hammer Film Horror as your theme, your invitations will be of better character than say, witches on a broomstick.
Staying with this topic, you may have already thought along the lines of either an old movie (movie theatre) ticket style invitation, or more colorful, old billboard poster style. If you are good with a computer, start your own with royalty-free or purchased artwork. If you’re not sure, take your ideas to your local printer and they’ll be able to translate them into the final invitation or flatbed print (to complement).
Another essential is writing what you want out of the invitation, this should include as a minimum; The name of the guest, the name of the party giver, date, time, location, it can also include a dress code and most importantly the theme of any dress code, if you want everyone to be dressed. You can include some fashion suggestions although you may want to do this on a separate piece of paper. And why not discuss your theme with a luxury clothing supplier first so they can provide a list of suggested costumes or help choose your theme. They might also help by keeping a “who ordered which costume” list for you so you don’t get 30 people wearing the same outfit.
Going back to the invitations, after creating the theme and developing your basic information list, you need the basic invitation. If you have a steady hand you can trace certain shapes onto art paper (cardboard) and then cut them out, decorate them, or just leave them as a simple silhouette and use them. If you trace your design onto folded paper – keeping the fold (traditionally) to the left, when you cut the design it will open into the invitation. If you don’t cut the fold line too! Good variations for this are pumpkin, ghost, witch, all of which can be decorated very stylized.
For something a bit more elegant, why not use old brown paper with a wrinkled and torn look, charred edges (responsible adults only) and designed to look really old. An alternative is to use white paper and give the appearance of aging by smearing it in a weak solution of tea and then leaving a few (not too many) coffee grounds to add dark spots – they will spread with the moisture in the paper. While it’s still wet, use your thumb to gently loosen the edges by separating the fibers – you may need to try this a few times to get the process right. When dry, crumble and tear as required.
To really make it stand out, once your invitation is done why not stretch a little cobweb material and attach it. Don’t be tempted to use too much, this is a case of less is more, you just want a hint. Taking this further, you can drop a small spider (in line with the cobweb) into the envelope.
What will you use to write your invitation? pencil? As it’s Halloween, why not go for the ultimate spook by using fake blood. Don’t make it too elegant and don’t forget to leave a few splashes around the invitation to make it look really original. A thicker blood gel might be better suited for this task.
If you have to post your Halloween invitations, you’ll need to fold them up and put them in an envelope, but if you can avoid that, there are more elaborate ways to present your Halloween invitation. For very little money you can buy plastic skeletal hands, which either roll up your invitation and clamp it in the hand so that it ‘grabs’ it or clasp it between the thumb and finger so that the hand appears to be holding it.
If you’ve chosen something like a grand vampire’s ball as the theme, you can wrap your invitations with red ribbon and seal them with sealing wax using a stamp made from a small coin (an unusual foreign currency works best) or better yet, or your own unique Vampire Clan mark.
Handing out these elegant invitations should get your party off to a glamorous start and it will be very hard to beat because others won’t stand a chance. Have a good time.