A Halloween so fun it’s scary

Halloween is spooky, silly, crazy and so fun (for both you and your kids). But between the costumes, decorations, trick-or-treating and food, it can be a lot of work. So we’ve come up with a few of our own easy-to-recreate ideas that make a big impact with minimal effort.

A kitchen with a large table that is full of Halloween decorations.

A mother and her two kids dressed in Halloween costumes are playing with their food.

We sat down with Mónica and her two kids, Oliver, 8, and Amaya, 5, to learn about their favourite way to spend the holiday. “I like to make Halloween festive, but I also try to keep the decor fairly simple and put most of my focus on the costumes and treats,” says Mónica. Makes sense to us! To get this look just dip-dye a white table cloth in red colouring and shred or cut the sides for a ragged look. And if you really want to kick things up, stuff a pair of stockings with cotton and tie them together across a broom hung above the table.

Every Halloween Mónica makes a blood-coloured soup for the kids. We added some eery eyeballs (mozzarella balls and pimiento-stuffed olives) for extra creep factor. And boney, green witch fingers are easy to whip up by adding green food colouring to a simple shortbread recipe, topping with almonds for nails.

A bowl of green dough sits in a glass bowl on a wooden chopping board.

Almonds are placed onto shortbreads that look like witches’ fingers.

When we asked Oliver what his dream (nightmare?) Halloween absolutely has to include, he was quick to answer “Dracula!” So we helped him make his own version by wrapping a soft ball in white cloth, placing it on top of a cone and wrapping him up in a trademark black cape. Then Oliver did his thing and drew on a most ghastly face.

Overview image of supplies used to create DIY dracula.

A woman wraps a soft ball in a white cloth.

A little boy ties a black cape around his DIY Dracula.

A stack of small glass jars filled with red gelatin and treats that look like eyeballs.

Party’s over? We think not. Send guests home with a treat. Fill small jars with a tasty red gelatin dessert and let them set in the fridge. For the icky eyeballs, wrap a small piece of chocolate with marzipan, round them out in your palms, adding veins with red icing and pupils with green marzipan.