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My best friend Nicole and I are OBSESSED with Halloween and since

2019 have decided to host a Halloween party every year. October 2020 was

our 2nd party and we really went all out for this one, creating handmade

invitations, spending waaaay too much money on decorations (some of which

succeeded in scaring the crap out of people), and providing a huge meal that

was just absolutely to die for. It was a HUGE step up from our first one and I

am excited to share with you all how we pulled it off. Read all about our party below!

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The Theme: Sanitarium

In the midst of a COVID pandemic we figured a sanitarium theme was

just too dang perfect to pass up. Thus the Grimes Street Sanitarium was born. 

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Invitations:

For invitations we really went all out creating these handmade ones made

to look like folders that hold your patient information.

And here we have the lovely Nicole putting in work splattering our invitations with fake blood for a little extra flair.

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We either hand delivered the folders or mailed them out to our

guests in manilla envelopes. Everyone really loved them!

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The inspiration for these invitations came from here:

https://www.halloweenforum.com/threads/bloody-asylum-party-2015.140898/

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Decorations:

For decorations my goal was to make the place feel like an abandoned

sanitarium. The porch was decorated with a graveyard for our more

permanent residents and one of our patients sat at the door to warn greet

you while the plague doctor watched him from the corner. You can also see

in the window other patients attempting their escape, but as they found

out, once you enter….you can never leave.

My yard was in disarray after removing a huge tree, but I personally think it added to the decorations.
For the front door I decorated it with a "Do Not Enter" door cover from Walmart, a "Happy Halloween" welcome mat, fake snakes I spray painted black, and a homemade "Grimes Street Sanitarium" sign.
To make this sign I used a wood cutout from Walmart, black paint, and stencils. Honestly one of my favorite DIYs.
In the corner we have our lovely plague doctor (hood and mask found here), a bench covered in spider webs and creepy cloth, and a "Beware" sign all from Dollar Tree.
To create this guy I made a pvc pipe body and threw on a straight jacket (found here) and some pants from Goodwill. His head is a foam head I spray painted black and threw a Walmart mask on. Finally, I stuffed his legs and body with pillow stuffing.

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Next came the living room which served as a reception area/waiting

room complete with a check in desk and nurse Ginger. Oh and one visitor

who seems to have been waiting an eternity to see the doctor. Poor Fred.

I wasn't too sure what I wanted to do with this entry table so I just kind of went with a more typical Halloween display. I do really love the look of the skull and the spiders on the wall though.
At the check in desk was where we had the costume contest voting cards and box (a sharps container which is not pictured above) as well as some Scary Movie Trivia, a spooky rotary phone from Target (again not pictured) and syringe pens! The check in sign was homemade using a Dollar Tree canvas and red paint and Ginger's scrubs came from Goodwill! 

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Want the PDF versions of these? Email me at theeverydayadventurers3@gmail.com!

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From the waiting area you walked through a curtain into the autopsy room.

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In the autopsy room you found medical diagrams on the walls and an unfortunate

victim, errr, I mean patient, on the table. 

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I scanned and printed off the medical diagrams from my Grey's Anatomy

book and taped them onto black poster board I picked up from the Dollar

Tree. The poster board I then taped to the wall with masking tape, however, I

recommend you use command strips instead to ensure it stays. On the dining

table I draped a white tablecloth and we built our patient on top of it.

(You will see more of him in the food section!) To continue with the creepy

theme I also put another purple lightbulb in my light fixture and draped

some creepy cloth on the sliding door curtains.

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In a corner of the kitchen we set up a place for you to pick up your "prescription" aka little candies that our guests could put into a pill bottle and take with them..

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Next we have the bathrooms. Bathroom number one was down the hall right off of the autopsy room…

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Just watch out for the little spook at the end of the hall when you go….

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For this bathroom I decorated it with a black toilet seat cover from

Walmart, creepy cloth on the window, a skull faux mirror from

Dollar Tree, and cockroaches all along the wall. Those little

cockroaches definitely creeped out some people at the party and

I would be lying if I said that they didn't scare me a time or two

especially with them being so close to the toilet paper. Lol 

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I also put up a bloody shower curtain and…
Decorated the mirror with some unsettling messages. The only light in this bathroom was the headlamp you see sitting in the corner on the counter. I used a window paint marker to write the messages on the mirror.

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The second bathroom was the one that had everyone running scared. 

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For this bathroom I wanted to give it the appearance of solitary

confinement since there aren't any windows in here and went with

red light bulbs, rats, black mats, and more unsettling notes.

("You can never leave" was also written using window paint.) 

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However, the real decoration that had everyone refusing to use the bathroom was in the shower.

Here we have our solitary confinement patient. She is made out of pvc pipes, clothes from Goodwill, and a foam head with an insanely creepy mask and wig from Walmart. On the walls of the shower I taped up sheets of paper with tally marks on them to make it look like she had been trapped in there for awhile before she realized she could never leave and gave up. 

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As I said everyone was talking about how creepy she was and I definitely

scared a few people with it. However, they totally got me back. As

the party was wrapping up I was starting to do end of party things

and a few people got together and thought it would be funny to move

her out into the middle of the kitchen. I came around the corner and

dropped everything I was holding. From that point on she followed

me throughout the house till everyone left, scaring the crap out of me

each time, until everyone left. I took her apart and put her away immediately after that. Lol

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Video

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Food:

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I was pumped for the food we had this year because I had seen others create

these "people'' using the food they were serving and I was ready to try my

hand at it! So I borrowed some clothes and set to work on constructing our guy. 

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He turned out exactly how I had imagined him! For his "brains" we made

rice krispie treats in the shape of brains and splattered them

with "blood" (red frosting). Next up came smoked BBQ ribs and pulled

pork for his chest cavity. For his legs we had buns and chips and finally

we served homemade bread and BBQ sauce in syringes. .

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For dessert we had cherry jello in petri dishes and blood splattered oreos.

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Our drink selections included O- blood (red punch), urine samples (lemonade), and saline (water). We also had a tea kettle with hot water and some instant coffee and hot chocolate set up next to these drinks since it was a cold night.

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Costume Contest:

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You can't have a Halloween party without a costume contest! For

this we had pre-made cards set up at the check in table with blanks

for people to write in who they thought was the most deserving winner

of each category. They could then place these cards in a sharps container

which Nicole and I collected towards the end of the night. 

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The winners of the contest received one of these homemade trophies (made from fake body parts nailed to boards) and a gift bag containing a Halloween mug and candy.

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Games:

Finding good games and activities for an adult Halloween party that

doesn't involve alcohol is a lot tougher than you would think. Lol

For this party we ended up going with pumpkin carving, a movie

(Hocus Pocus) watch area, Botched Operation the board game, and some

yard games like ring toss.

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It ended up being very cold that night so no one ended up going outside

to watch the movie or carve pumpkins and instead spent the majority

of their time inside talking. Oh well. Lol 

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Attendees:

Not everyone who came to the party dressed up which is

totally cool, but the ones that did definitely killed it!

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