Jenna's Lovely Jamboree: Pumpkin Patch Perfection

Hello Everyone!

I threw a pumpkin carving party this year for Halloween! It was so much fun. I love creating festive touches during the holidays and I thought hosting a carving party would be a great way to decorate my apartment and spend some time with my friends. I enlisted the help of one of my favorite uncles, Joe! He is the mastermind/ executioner behind my party planning.

There were so many little details that made the entire evening a complete success. Planning a party while juggling a full time job is not the easiest of tasks. I wouldn't have been able to pull everything together without Uncle Joe. So a gigantic THANK YOU is necessary.

We started with the entryway. The lighting was distorted with aluminum foil and the spider egg sacks (gross!!) were made from Epson Salt filled balloons in stalkings (with a glow stick to illuminate the spiders). They were wrapped in spider webbing and hung with tiny nails from the ceiling. Spider webbing was draped from the walls with lots of spiders! [It still freaks me out]. We added in a little something special... the large spider in front of the door is harnessed to a string that pulls open when the door is opened so my guests were greeted with a scampering spider up the door. (pictures below!)

Walking into the living room you're not quite sure where to look first. Along the crown molding is a boarder of black and orange crepe paper, bats, and balloons. Along the walls is a black crepe paper fence with a watchful crow and more bats! Those were fun to cut out- I was inspired by these bats on Paper Crave.

In the windows you'll see 'traveling ghosts' inspired by Disneyland's Haunted Mansion. We used white balloons, drew scary faces, and put glow sticks inside before blowing them up. We hung plastic drop plastic with painters tape and sprayed green glow in the dark paint to be picked up by the black light bulbs.

Over the television hung the ghastly ghost to ensure fright and fun were taking place during the party. In front of the ghost was a table covered in painters drop plastic to keep pumpkin guts from getting everywhere! (We put plastic on the floor too, which made for easy clean up). I created basic center pieces from tall vases filled with glow bracelets for the guests and vampire fangs. Pumpkin carving kits, templates, and goodie bags filled with candy held places for each of my guests.

The food table was quite a spread! Name tags for each of the dishes with fun names informed guests what they were eating. We had Cranium Cheese in the shape of a brain, Witch Digits with almond finger nails, Moldy Mustard, Weiner Worms, Hobgoblin Eggs, Cemetery Crudite, and Devils' Eggs with red food coloring veins to name a few. I also applied some stickers to cover the real bottle labels with more fun Halloween inspired names.

The last surprise for my guests was in the bathroom. A white cloth was hung over the shower curtain with bloody handprints and slashes through the material. The mirror had bloody handprints and splatters, and a message in blood (red paint) explaining the need for carnage. Red lights and a knife on the counter completed the horror movie scene.

Here are some pictures of the party. I had so much fun putting everything together (with lots and lots of help!) and seeing the looks on my friends faces during the evening.