https://amelia-j-wilson.com/wp-content/themes/bard/assets/fonts/fontello.woff2?5381655 https://amelia-j-wilson.com/wp-content/themes/bard/assets/fonts/fontello.woff2?5381655
halloween-fall-party-ideas

How to throw a Halloween party on a budget

I’m sure you know by now, but I’m all for budgeting! This Halloween, I’m actually throwing my first ever Halloween party and I decided it’d be cool to share my budget-savvy Halloween party tips with you.


Disclaimer: All of the views and opinions in this post are solely my own and are not sponsored. This post includes affiliate links, meaning I earn a commission through links at no cost to you.


halloween-party-ideas

You can’t go wrong with pumpkins!

The main decoration for my Halloween party is pumpkins. Matt and I were able to go to the pumpkin patch and get quite a few large pumpkins for carving and decoration for less than $30!

While pumpkins can get expensive, the key is to look for a good deal. Towards the middle and end of October, pumpkins become much cheaper. 

Also, we bought several miniature pumpkins and small gourds to decorate around the house. Each one was a dollar so it made decorating very inexpensive.

The only issue I foresee with decorating pumpkins is the time spent to carve them. However, if you’re short on time (since time is money) you can totally leave the pumpkins as is and just prop them up around your home! 

They add the best kind of Halloween flair and are great decoration for a party!

Use tissue banners

I went to the craft store and bought two of those long tissue banner tape rolls. I got an orange and a black one. My goal is to twirl them up and string them across my ceiling and entryways for some budget-friendly decor.

The great thing about these tissue paper rolls is that you can do almost anything you want with them. Their versatility and low price makes them one of my favorite decorations for a party. 

I like to tie them into ribbons and wrap them around candles or candy bowls. I’ve also considered buying tan or white rolls to wrap up one of my pumpkins to look like a mummy!

Candles everywhere

Alright, so this might actually be a hack that I use for all decorating throughout the year. Candles. They’re such a simple decor item but they make a world of a difference.

For halloween, I purchase three different types of candles:

  • Large scented candles
  • Small tea lights
  • Small battery-powered tea lights 

I place the big candles throughout every room of my house and only alternate between two to three scents. I like pumpkin spice, apple pie, and cinnamon for my fall/winter candle sets. I try not to do much more than three scents because they can quickly become overwhelming.

I do have a few unscented candles as well that I will place around my home. Often, I put the large candles on my tables in the living and dining room since there is space for them there.

As for tea lights, I have a few decorative candle holders which I place my tea lights in. They are small and unscented which means I can put them anywhere that they will fit so long as it’s safe!

I light to use small LED or battery-operated tea lights in my pumpkins and around the house where real flames are unsafe to go. One great thing about these lights is that you can choose fake-flickering, orange glow, white glow, and many other colors and abilities when it comes to these lights. This makes Halloween parties much more vibrant and cozy!

Additional Hack:

Last year my friend bought a glow-in-the-dark skull from Michaels and filled the skull with scented wax and a candle wick to make a skull candle! It’s super cool and an extraordinarily easy DIY Halloween craft to make on a budget!

**I couldn’t find the skull candle mold online, but I know it’s out there!

Skull ice cube tray

This year, I bought a small skull ice cube tray from Walmart. I’m super excited to use it because I know it’ll blow my guests’ minds. I mean, it blew mine! 

The ice cube tray is super easy to use too. I fill it up with filtered water and let the water freeze before popping out the little skulls! 

As far as school shaped items go, I’m really interested in purchasing a skull-shaped baking tray/mold for baking. I’ll link the item below of course, but the reason I want this item is because I think it’d be so crafty and unique to make skull-shaped calzones or pizza bites! 

Now, if we bring this back to ice:

Originally, I didn’t plan for skull-shaped ice cubes. I was actually going to make floating ice hands in a punch bowl.

I’m fairly certain that I’ve seen this hack on Pinterest, but essentially, you fill a latex glove with filtered water, tie the end, and place it in the freezer. Once the water has turned to ice, you cut off the glove and are left with a hand-shaped piece of ice to place in a punch bowl!

Homemade spooky cupcakes

Alright, this is another decoration/idea that I received when visiting Walmart. They were selling several cupcake paper covers and toppers that just screamed Halloween! I ended up purchasing some cupcake paper holders that looked like they had blood splattered on them and then chose some gravestone toppers to go along with it.

This year, I’ll be baking some devil’s food cupcakes with those holders and toppers and I’ll alternate icing each cupcake with orange and black icing. I think it’ll be a hit! And in total, it was about $10 for all of those items, which is very budget-friendly!

Halloween movies 

Lastly, I figured the most inexpensive decoration or activity for any Halloween party is a Halloween movie. I buy my seasonal movies from the Meijer $5 and under bin during the summer and early spring. 

However, in this digital age, you can always rent a few movies from Amazon Prime or Youtube for a few dollars to entertain your guests or have some background noise. 

This year, one of the main activities for my party will be watching Halloween movies. It’s inexpensive, easy, and enjoyable so why not?


If you like this post, check out some similar posts of mine below!

Feel free to leave a comment below and let me know what your Halloween budget-friendly decor looks like!

You can also email me with questions or concerns you may have at info.amelia.wilson@gmail.com

My new book, Witch in the Water, is available on Amazon!

Also, check out my poetry book, The Lights are on but Nobody’s Home, available now on amazon for $6.99!

Disclaimer: All of the views and opinions in this post are solely my own and are not sponsored. This post includes affiliate links, meaning I earn a commission through links at no cost to you.

Thanks again

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *