Now is the perfect time to plan a festive Halloween Carnival. Traditional red circus stripes are turned orange for this haunted affair. Be sure to check back all week for more circus-inspired fun with a Halloween twist (and watch out for ghosts!).
Guests will be extra excited to open their Halloween Carnival invitations with our fun “Happy Halloween” Envelope Wraps. Download the envelope wrap template and print directly onto a full-sheet label, trim to size and carefully wrap around the envelope. Also download our free printable invitation.
Since your guests have developed a taste for good blood, they’ll be dying to take home a jar of this “Clotted Blood” party favor.
Make bottles of homemade strawberry jam and apply these free printable Clotted Blood labels. You can also cover or remove the labels from a store-bought, red jam. Get the full set of Blood Bar printables here.
To provide a focal point for the Blood Bar we created and hung a diy Gauze Garland that is both sinister and stylish.
TO MAKE: You’ll need a white PVC pipe cut to the appropriate length for your table. Hang your pipe with fishing line in a convenient spot for assembly. You can use inexpensive gauze fabric by the yard cut it into strips, but rolled bandages would also work. Drape the strips of gauze over the pipe in varying lengths. Since gauze is see-through, you will need to keep layering on strips until you can no longer see the pipe. Once you’re satisfied with the arrangement of your gauze strips, apply a strong adhesive (we used E6000 glue) to the gauze along the top of the pipe and allow it to soak through the fabric to the pipe.
Our Blood Bar provided pre-dinner drinks for an elegant Transylvanian dinner party that featured lots of spooky details. A half-dug grave in the front yard, provides eerie foreshadowing of what lies ahead.
Serve a tray of “Moldy Cheese and Crackers” for guests to nibble as they sip their Vampire Cocktails. The frightening dinner menu, featuring our main course of “Layered Flesh and Blood,” was set out on guests’ plates.
Clusters of drippy candles haunt the center of the seemingly endless table and cast sinister shadows on diners dressed in dark colors.
The center piece of the Blood Bar is the “Blood Vessels” filled with frighteningly red blood and delicious Halloween drinks. To dress up these beverage dispensers for the occasion, apply a tape seal topped with the very official-looking, Transylvanian Blood Bank printable label. A large, white hang tag identifies the blood type — for those vampires with a discerning palette.
The Blood Bar Printables are available as virgin or non-virgin. For Virgin Vampire Cocktails the O+ Blood is really cranberry juice mixed with ginger ale. Make AB- Blood with lemon-lime soda and red food coloring.
