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. 

Nancy Drew Halloween Party - The Invisible Intruder

Another Spooktacular Nancy Drew Halloween Party has come and gone--featuring the classic Nancy Drew book, The Invisible Intruder. In this book, Nancy Drew and her chums join several other couples on a ghost hunting adventure where they make 5 stops on the ghost tour and tie all the ghostly happenings to a gang of swindlers and thieves. The last stop on the tour finds them at a shell and skull collector's home and they tangle with creepy butler, Jeffers, who did it! Here's some pictures of the party decor...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vintage Halloween Inspired Window Silhouette

Find Vintage Halloween Halloween inspiration when styling your Halloween parties! For my annual Nancy Drew Halloween party, the front window silhouette combine Nancy Drew in her infamous silhouette pose with magnifying glass and scarf with the bottom of this witch image on this old Halloween costume box. The witch's skirt and the skeleton marionette were great inspiration for my skeleton decor this year. Want more vintage inspiration, check out my Halloween Pinterest Boards for ideas -- over 80 boards in many different themes.

Countdown to Halloween - Oct. 30 - Nancy Drew Halloween Party

Nancy Drew

Blackwood Hall 

Halloween Party 

I selected the spooky Nancy Drew classic book, The Ghost of Blackwood Hall, #25 in the series as this year's Halloween party theme. This year was my 5th annual Nancy Drew Halloween Party and I set out to recreate a little bit of Blackwood Hall as the setting. 12 of us gathered at the house for an evening of spooks and treats with a ghostly theme. We dined on an old favorite, Parmesan chicken, penne Alfredo, salad with all the trimmings, rolls, chips and dips and salsa, peanut butter chocolate cream cheese ball with cookies and crackers, and for dessert: rice krispie treat cupcakes, popcorn balls, pretzel sticks dipped in chocolate, and Reese's peanut butter cookie cups. Sleuth Pam from Canada also brought us some delicious chocolates from Canada and Maple Sugar candies! Bess would have been in Heaven--except for the luminous green "poison" punch! Yum!

We played a quicksand trivia game for prizes, a nifty crossword puzzle based on the book, and we held our annual treat bag gift exchange. We also took photos with photo booth props and glowing glasses--the ones on the porch without the flash have a very ghostly effect! The porch was the hidden elevator in Blackwood Hall complete with green glowing specter and to the side was the secret room that opened off the elevator that had the skeleton, magic props, mannequin, and scary looking cat. The front window silhouette was a take on the second cover art shown above with Nancy standing apart from Bess (who says "Eeek!") and George with the flashlight. The house was decorated with ghosts, pumpkins lit the walkway and hung from the trees with lights inside, and 2 large scarecrows guarded the entry to the porch with crows perched on their arms. Inside the back of the elevator was a jar of green "poison" just like was left with Nancy in the elevator by the villainous Brex Brothers! I passed out goody bags to everyone with treats and Blackwood Hall buttons.

I loved creating all the "ghostly" decor, so enjoy some pics from the party:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jenn:)