Halloween Ideas
When Halloween comes around on 31st October, we know that winter is setting in and that we’re coming up to the end of Autumn.
Kids love dressing up in Halloween costumes and going off ‘Trick or Treating’ with their friends and parents. Halloween costumes can be cute – like a pumpkin outfit. Or scary – think Dracula or a witch. Although you don’t have to wear a scary outfit at all if you don’t want to – there are plenty of kids going around dressed as Snow White or one of the Incredibles. 
You can buy some great Halloween costumes online, like this Lady Dracula number from Marks & Spencer. But if you’re feeling a little more imaginative, making a Halloween costume is a creative way to spend time with the kids.
This cobweb spider cape discovered via Martha Stewart is really easy and inexpensive to make and very creepy!
If you’re going out trick or treating in a group or waiting for it to get dark, you’re going to want to feed your hordes of ghosts, vampires and zombies beforehand – because afterwards all they are going to want to do is get stuck into all the sweets and treats they’ve amassed in their goodie bags.
This soup (recipe via BBC Food) is suitably green. Serve up before you go off and you’ll know the kids have got something substantial and healthy in their tummies to keep them going.
This recipe for ghost cakes made from marshmallows (again via BBC Food) is easy and another way of spending time creatively and productively with young children.
Luxury grocer Fortnum & Mason have some fabulous Halloween goodies. If you’re looking for a Halloween gift, Fortnum’s are famous for hampers and have produced some especially for Halloween with suitably scary contents.
Carved pumpkins lit up with candles are the traditional way of decorating the outside of your house for Halloween (apparently it also lets people know you’re happy to be visited for trick or treating). However, it’s not always as easy as it might seem to craft a really good pumpkin face. Yet again, Martha Stewart comes to the rescue with an easy to follow guide on how to carve a pumpkin and templates for different scary face designs that you can copy.
A great place to look for inspiration for Halloween is our Pinterest board on which we’ve collected together some images which have caught our imaginations.
You might not always be able to get together with friends and family for Halloween in which case it is a perfect time to send a greetings card. Ananya has some beautifully designed Halloween cards for you to send and they could also double up as Halloween invitations if you’re planning on having a party. Here’s one we have produced for a wedding.
We’re looking out for Halloween costumes to feature on our Facebook page – so if you’re making one you’re really proud of we’d love to see a photo!
Ananya Blog 
Trust the team at Ananya to come up with such a diverse “mood board” of ideas for Halloween – Well Done! We particularly loved your black Halloween card creation with word art in the shape of a pumpkin. And we must say, we’ve never seen such a seductive Lady Dracula before!