Saturday, October 31, 2015

Happy Halloween - Nancy Drew & Clue Style


For my 7th annual Nancy Drew Halloween party, I chose the classic Nancy Drew book, #30 The Clue of the Velvet Mask and paired it with my favorite detective game, Clue - The Velvet Mas-CLUE-Rade. Nancy Drew fans and members of Nancy Drew Sleuths traveled from as far as Canada to attend the party and the accompanying Drew-O-Ween activities on the next day. To set the stage, I chose the scene from Velvet Mask where Nancy is dancing with the masked thief and that became the window silhouette complete with bats flitting about.

The setting was Drew Manor, where Nancy had invited her friends to a masquerade party as a ruse to help catch the Velvet Gang, a gang of thieves who were stealing at parties around River Heights. One of the gang had infiltrated the party and was planning to kidnap Nancy and steal the Velvet Mask she'd found at one of the parties. So, everyone had to play detective to figure out - Clue style - which suspect, which room, which weapon. Suspects were taken from Velvet Mask and they had 6 in the book, so it perfectly matched the Clue set up. It was so much fun, we had a great time!


 
 
 

Guest arriving were greeted by our Skeleton Suspects decked out in their Clue colors. Tags featuring their Velvet Mask character names and alias Clue suspect names.

 
 
 
 
 

Inside the house which was Drew Manor for the party, guests feasted on lots of goodies baked by Hannah Gruen and recipes and snacks from some of Nancy's friends and family including - George's Monster Munch, Carson's Chicago Mix Popcorn, Togo's Tortilla Rolls, The Chief's Chips & Salsa, lots of candies, Nancy's Chocolate Cupcakes, Hannah's Rice Krispie Treats, Bess's Yummy Reese's Peanut Butter Cookie Cups, Shadow Ranch Slow Cooked Brisket, Pinto Beans, The Nickerson's Nawlins Potatoes, Eerie Green Chile Chicken Enchilada Casserole, Thrilling Tomato & Avacodo Salad, and The Cornings Cherry Chiller Punch. I created treat picks using various images from suspect silhouettes and images from the Cameo version of the book to old time Halloween masked ladies to our mystery icons and Clue fingerprints.

 
 
 
 
 

Keeping with the Clue theme, we had garlands of Clue weapons including poison and Nancy Drew's nemesis - chloroform!! Also our mystery icon silhouettes from our Nancy Drew Printable Party Kits. A rat was attempting to steal a Rice Krispie Treat Cupcake and a vintage Clue game board from the late 1940s adorned the table. One of our sinister suspects Burt Snecker - a.k.a. Professor Plum was among the decor wearing the Velvet Mask Nancy found after thieves had raided the masquerade party!

 

A Vintage late 1940's Clue Game Board was part of the decor as well as various faux clue weapons.

 

Our Suspect Wall was a Rogue's Gallery of our 6 Clue/Velvet Mask suspects and a banner was created out of vintage Nancy Drew book pages from an old falling apart book. Everyone's goody bags were sitting on the table too--one side featured the Velvet Mask from the cover with it's creepy eyes, the other was a Clue fingerprint. Inside were a set of orange notecards with a bevy of spooky scene internal illustrations from Nancy Drew books I created, a test tube of Hannah Gruen's Hot Cocoa mix and the recipe card to make up your own, a "poisonous" bag of treats, a JOL game, Velvet Mask button, and a light up JOL or Skull ring. 

Friday, October 30, 2015

Halloween Antiquing


Some things I spotted in a recent trip to an antique mall. I came home with the Halloween tin and a few New Years noisemakers I found.

 
 
 
 

Wednesday, October 28, 2015

It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown Halloween Party Ideas at Pinterest


The Peanuts movie is coming out Nov. 6! Celebrate with a Peanuts Great Pumpkin Halloween theme this year - get lots of ideas at our Halloween Pinterest Boards.

 
 
 

Thursday, October 22, 2015

Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Friday, October 16, 2015

Vintage Halloween Noisemaker?


I added this vintage Kirchhof horn noisemaker to my collection recently - it features costumed ladies and gents that remind me of the old Dennison Bogie Books with their crepe costumes. It is in orange/black - so I wonder if it was available during Halloween season? If anyone has any clues, please comment.

 

Thursday, October 15, 2015

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Sunday, October 11, 2015

2015 Halloween @ At Home #4


I liked these little spooky houses inside these cloches - neat decor/ornaments from At Home. The bat placements were cool too. The skelly bowl--really neat.