Halloween Spider Party – Decorations, Food & Entertainment

On Saturday Mary finally had her dream birthday party. We had her Halloween spider party at the town park; despite a very wet and dreary start to the day the weather tuned around and it ended up being a beautiful day. We had spiders and spider webs everywhere, even on the cake and taco dip! Irving the spider pinata made another appearance and everyone had a great time.

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I had the party in a pavilion in a local park. It’s nice because there’s a play ground, bathroom and I don’t have to clean my house. The pavilion I reserved even had electric outlets! That came in handy when I had to whip out the glue gun for some last minute decorating. The only tricky part with an outdoor party is the weather, it was very windy last year and it took me an hour to get the table cloths down. 

The park has very long picnic tables so I set up the two against the wall for the food, drinks and gifts. Starting out with a large plastic cauldron filled with ice and water bottles and an orange tub for soda and juice boxes. Next up was silverware, in a fun spider basket and the plates. I like to put the appetizer-y foods first and them move through to the main course and dessert.

Taco dip is the main party food in my family. Without a doubt the second party planning question after “when?” is “who is making taco dip?” To make it fit the spider party theme I topped it with a few plastic spiders. I have a few relatives with a violent hatred of spiders, but they still ate the dip. I filled a few more spiderweb baskets with chips and popcorn. The baskets are very open and I wouldn’t have done this if the party was inside, at least not without lining the baskets with something.

You can’t have a party without desserts, doubly true when it’s a Halloween party! My sister made all the treats you seen, she spent 3 hours coloring marshmallows because she’s crazy. I had a friend make the cake. Mary was very clear in her desire for a blue chocolate spider cake and that’s what she got! Mary’s dad made the spider sugar cookies, it was amazing how quickly the girls learned to eat the chocolate off and leave the cookie!

I wanted to keep the decorations simple because I had to get everything home in my car with the kids and food. I pulled out my glue gun (in the pavilion, my sister was both impressed and confused), a bag of spiders and 4 large orange paper lanterns. I had all four done and hung with curling ribbon in less than 10 minutes. The orange really stood out and the black spiders were perfect for the theme.

Another family tradition is the pinata. Over stuffed with enough junk inside to please 3x the number of kids present. This year I filled it with bags of Halloween goldfish, fruit rollups, granola bars and a tiny bit of candy because it’s Halloween! Before hand I set up glow-in-the-dark spider cups with a few favors like bubbles and spider rings that I didn’t want crashing to the ground. Each kid got one to fill with the pinata booty. Even Kat got in on the action!

I haven’t finished the girls costumes yet so I had to throw something together for the party. Mary wanted something fancy so I made her a spiderweb tutu and did a sock-bun spider in her hair. I threw a black tulle skirt on Kat and stuck cat ears on her head but that only lasted a few minutes. It’s always fun having an excuse to dress up! I hope you enjoyed this taste of Mary’s Spider party, find more eight-legged fun on my Halloween page