Spooky Good Halloween Party Invitations
It’s time to get down to business with some serious preparation for the Halloween party. Halloween is fast approaching and you need to sort out your guest list and fill out party invitations; otherwise you will end up alone. So how do you make the best impression on your friends and family to convince them that YOURS is the only party they should attend this year?
In our associated articles on pirate and princess party invitations, we have tried to convey that the party starts when you receive the invitation. You need to convey emotion and really make your guest clamor for their nearest pen to respond. Poorly thought out invitations mean the rest of your party skills will follow the same pattern. And great invitations don’t have to be expensive in anything but imagination. Let’s look at some basic principles for Halloween invitations. The most important thing is the understanding of the general theme. If you have selected Classic Hammer Film Horror as your theme, your invitations would be better for this theme than, say, witches on broomsticks.
Sticking with this theme, you may have already thought of an invitation in the style of an old movie ticket (Cinema), or more colorful, along the lines of old billboards. If you’re good with a computer, try it yourself using purchased or royalty-free artwork. If you’re not sure, take your ideas to your local print shop and they can translate them into the finished invitation or flat print (for you to fill in).
Another basic is to write what you want the invitation to say, this must include at least; name of the guest, name of the party planner, date, time and place, and you can also include the dress code, and more importantly, the subject of any dress code, if you want everyone to dress up. You can include some costume suggestions, although you may want to do this on a separate piece of paper. And why not discuss your theme with your costume supplier first so they can offer you a list of suggested costumes or help you with your theme selection. They can also help you by keeping a “who ordered what costume” list for you so you don’t have 30 people all dressed the same.
Going back to the invitations, having established the theme and developed your list of key information, you need the basic invitation. If you have a steady hand, you can trace specific shapes on art paper (construction paper) and then cut, decorate, or 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 out the design, it will open up on the invitation. If not, cut the fold line too! Good ways for this are pumpkin, ghost, witch, all of which can be decorated in a very stylish way.
For something fancier, why not use old brown paper with a wrinkled and torn appearance, charred edges (responsible adults only), and made to look really aged? An alternative is to use white paper and give it an aged appearance by staining it in a weak tea solution, then leaving a few (not too many) coffee granules to add darker stains; these will spread with moisture on the paper. While still wet, use your thumb to gently abrade the edges separating the fibers; you may need to try several times for the process to be successful. When dry, crumble and tear as needed.
To really make them stand out, once you’ve completed your invitation, why not stretch out some web material and attach this? Don’t be tempted to use too much, this is a case of less is more, you really just want a hint. Taking this further, you could drop a small spider (in keeping with the web) on the envelope.
And what will you use to write your invitation? Pencil? Since it’s Halloween, why not go for the latest horror using fake blood? Don’t make it too wordy and don’t forget to leave some splatter around the invite to make it look really authentic. One of the thicker blood gels may be more suitable 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 this, there are much more elaborate ways to present your Halloween invitation. For a little money you can buy plastic skeleton hands, roll up the invitation and affix it to the hand to “grasp” it or seal it between thumb and forefinger to make it look like the hand is holding it.
If you’ve chosen something like a grand vampire ball as your theme, you can wrap your invitations in red ribbon and seal them with wax using a stamp made from a small coin (an unusual foreign coin works best) or better yet or own a unique Vampire . Clan marking.
Handing out these elegant invitations should get your party off to a captivating start and will be devilishly hard to beat as others won’t have the remotest chance. have a good time
