I know it is May and there's a while to go before October. But this is when you get bargains like this. Amazon has reduced the Cheadle Royal Halloween Party Pack Ten Guests down to just £4.44 from £7.99. And, delivery is free if you've got Amazon Prime. Also, by buying Cheadle you're supporting a good cause (see more below).

• Click here for your Cheadle Royal Halloween Party Pack at Amazon

Whenever it is time for a party, there is no better way for you to get organised than with this party in a box. Oh yes indeed, I love party in boxes! Actually I keep a box (it has PARTY BOX in big letters on the side) on the top of the cupboards in the kitchen, and put bits and bobs for parties and occasions in there throughout the year. What I love is when I open it and find something I'd forgotten about. It is like getting a present for yourself!

Halloween only comes once a year and this scary and spooky night should be spent in the company of as many good friends as possible. This party pack will help you to decorate your house and get your guests in the mood for some Halloween fun. It should always be party time.

Cheadle Royal (Industries) Limited is a sheltered workshop and industrial therapy unit providing long-term support for thirty people with learning difficulties and mental health problems. CRI provides people with worthwhile jobs in a safe and friendly environment. While you have your party, you will be supporting the work of this amazing charity, that’s something to celebrate.

Thanks to wishihadadonkey at HUKD!

It's here – Halloween! If you're partying it up this weekend, here are a few goodies you might want to add to your décor.

Draw attention to your food and drinks with these Screaming And Flashing Skull Drinking Straws. They are fabulous screaming skulls that light up and flash whenever you take a sip through them. Theyre easy to unwrap and some of the packaging is recyclable, which is always a bonus.

The Screaming Straws are not so loud as to drive you mad which is especially helpful in a room full of Screaming Straws, and you can turn them off by blowing into them.

We gave them to PlayPennies mum Tammy to see what she and her kids thought about these novelty items, and they found them pretty amusing – Tammy's five year old loved it and insisted on using it in every drink every day for a week. They all felt these were “pretty darn cool”, and would make a fab addition to a fun Halloween party.

The down sides are that they are novelty, and Tammy wasn't sure how long they'd last. “It's the kind of thing you can stick in your cupboard and use year after year if they last, but,” she said, “How long before they'd lose that novelty and just end up landfill.”

Additionally, at £3.49 a pop, you'd probably only have a few at a table because it'd work out pretty pricey to have one per guest.

For those who don't get a screaming straw, the party's not a total wash-out: How about some vampire teeth ice cubes?

Tammy actually laughed at these – and I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing. You get five slots in one vampire teeth mould. You can use food colouring or coloured juice to make bloody vampire teeth ice cubes, or normal ice cubes for your normal drinks. Or if it's a grown up party, nothing like some vodka jellies in your moulds.

I'm getting to be a bit of an expert on children's costumes. My son loves dressing up just that much. The nicest, loveliest, most gorgeous costume I've ever seen for children or for adults is in his wardrobe. It is this Wizard Costume, and I have to say that the photos there just don't do it justice.

For one thing, they make it look blue, on my computer screen at least. Whereas it is in fact a rich, deep purple. I do have to warn you though that it is also the most expensive dress up outfit he owns as well. The costume costs £29.95. But the quality is well worth every penny.

It really does depend on your child. If you have one who is just in love with dressing up, and really gets into character, then it is a joy to find costumes like this one. It arrived in a large, sturdy box, shaped rather like a pizza box. The sort of box that a heroine in a movie opens to find a gorgeous, expensive evening dress.

The costume was beautifully wrapped in tissue paper. When he saw it, my son's first words were "oh I quite like this". Which actually surprised me because I was sure when I first saw it in the box he'd pronounce it as too girly to wear. Just goes to show you never can tell!

We haven't work it to the party yet. The Witches and Wizards party he is going to is on Monday, and he doesn't want to wear it out until then. But it has spent a lot of time on my son, as he has played around the house. Other costumes can look frazzled after a few games of jumping off the sofa and rolling across the cushions placed on the floor, but this one has held up well.

It is available in two sizes, 3 to 5 years, and 6 to 8 years. The website is called Swimbabes, which I found slightly confusing as it really is all about that - swimming with babies. However, there is a section for the fancy dress costumes, and I did really enjoy browsing through the lovely outfits they sell.

The website describes the costume as a cloak. However, it does have a button to fasten on the front. There's a silver brocade collar, and silver trim on the cuffs and bottom of the cloak. There's a silver and embroidered bat on one side of the front, and a moon and star on the right-hand side.

The hat has a silver brim, and the peak is fairly stiff, so stands up quite well. But is soft enough to have that authentic slightly floppy look that's just so cute.

As is so often the case with boy's fancy dress costumes, I wish they would not use so much pink. The label is attached to the costume with a pink ribbon, and the embroidery on the detail has a pinkish hue. If your child loves the costume, as my son did, then it probably won't matter. I can see though that for some boys it will be instantly off putting, as that whole gender colour thing is pretty big at this age. That's the only fault I could find with this costume though. Overall, I just wish I was small enough to wear it too.

It is Halloween on the 31st of October. As it is every year! For the past three years we've gone trick or treating. But this time around we're going to a children's party. My son loves getting dressed up. He has half a wardrobe full of costumes, and wears them whenever the mood takes him. Like going to the supermarket dressed as a penguin, or to the park in pirate costume.

There's a costume that he has that I thought I'd review as it makes a great alternative to scary types of Halloween costume. Interestingly, that's the one sort of outfit he really doesn't want to get dressed up in.

It is a clown costume. Specifically, the Mr Brighty Buttons costume (£17.99) that we got from Angels Fancy Dress. At least our one is, it is possible it is undergoing a name change as the costume is called Mr Brighty Balloons Clown. I rather prefer Buttons though, and that's what my son insists he is called when he has it on.

The costume is an all-in-one outfit, with fake braces. It also comes with a fabric 'top hat' - be careful in storage of this as I found it crushed easily. The material is bright and cheerful, with lots of strong primary colours. I've given it a hand wash after it was worn a few times, and it came up looking fresh and bright afterwards.

The instructions say sponge clean only, but I found that really only works for a while. The felt type fabric on the braces, for example, did start to look dingy.

My son absolutely refused point blank to wear the hat as the flower on, which looks purple on the photo, is definitely pink. Possibly an odd choice of colour given how sensitive boys get to this as his age - the costume is a medium for ages 7 to 9.

As such the costume is too big for him (he is six and a half) but nothing that rolling the sleeves up doesn't cure. The trousers are meant to be short anyway, so on him they just look normal.

I don't think that £17.99 is expensive for a good quality costume. Most of my son's dress-box is full of outfits I've bought for around the £10 mark and the seams are usually full of loose thread. Also, my other bugbear is the use of Velcro fasteners. On cheaper costumes with flimsier material, these are usually bulky things that create a weak point and are generally the first part of the costume to come apart. I'm pleased to say that this is not an issue on this costume.

Overall, it is a great outfit, but I do wonder at it being targetted at boys. It doesn't seem at all gender specific to me, and girls love to wear it when they come to visit.

Last year I carved out four pumpkins, and was astonished at how much flesh I had left over. What to do with it all? This year I'm aiming to be more adventurous with my pumpkins - I'm such a sucker for those orange lanterns! All I know though is pumpkin soup. There's roast pumpkin, a specialty in New Zealand where I come from (in case you missed it, we also hold the rugby world cup. Just saying.).

However, there's two problems with roasting the pumpkin here. First, the pumpkins they sell in the shops in the UK aren't the same as ours. Ours seem to have a deeper, rich, dark orange flesh, which also seems to be denser and less watery.

My daughter has just hit the Hello Kitty stage and the “Ooooh Halloween” stage and so I got her this pretty darn awesome Halloween Hello Kitty from Build-a-Bear Workshop. At first glance online, the Hallow (geddit? Hahaha) Kitty doesn’t look that appealing. It really doesn’t.

The mottled texture makes it look like packaging as opposed to a cute Build-a-Bear toy. However, once you get this bear it looks completely different and is oh, so, very soft. Soft, soft, soft like that toilet paper advert.

She is also a spectacular orange colour. I’m a fan of orange so this worked for me but was it something that worked for my daughter?

Her face lit up when she saw this Hello Kitty and it has remained by her side for weeks now. She refuses to sleep without it and getting her to school is a bit of a trial as she, obviously, can’t take it with her.

The Hello Kitty has undergone quite a bit of use since I got it for her, so how is it holding up. Fine, is the answer. Build-a-Bear really do deliver good quality toys that are robust enough to handle most kinds of kiddie abuse. We still have bears we made when I was pregnant and they look like new.

The second question is, of course, the price. This Hello Kitty is big. She sits at 46cm and is a lot for small arms to cuddle. She is also a brand so there has to be the obligatory slapping on of extra dosh for the name. I think that £20 is an averagely good price for a Hello Kitty Halloween toy that can be customised and built together.

You could get a large Hello Kitty toy elsewhere for cheaper but it wouldn’t be this awesome bright orange and have loads of extra clothing to kit her out with either. A good buy as a special treat.

I'm a Halloween grinch; I confess! If there's a festival/celebration/call it what you will, that's been totally hijacked, it's Halloween.  I loathe it and I will NOT be putting a carved pumpkin outside my door so that other people's kids can knock on it begging for sweets!

However, I appreciate I'm very much in the minority and that there are lots of kiddies and grown-ups, up and down the land, who are getting very excited at the prospect of dressing up and going out Trick or Treating.

Clintons - yes, the 'card people' - sent us a few of their Halloween bits and pieces which we duly handed over to one of our PlayPennies parents to try out.

There's around 500 items at Yellow Moon right now for under £5. That sounds like a great offer for stocking up on all the secret santa / school present / friends' kids presents / or stocking fillers on you Christmas list. If you're all sorted for Christmas, it also sounds like a fantastic way of stocking up for all the kids parties you might need gifts for in the next year!

• Browse 500 items for under a fiver

So what will you find in the bargain pile? A 2 pack of Dinosaur & Transport Fabulastics are down from £3.99 to 99p, while a lovely 8-pack of Animal Suncatcher Photo Frames will set you back £1.99. On the upper end of the scale you'll be looking at £4.99 for a Build Your Own Eiffel Tower which used to be £4.99.

If you're thinking a little closer to the now, there's a great range of halloween goodies in the sale too. From 99p for the Halloween Cutlery Set, down from £3.99, to the £1.49 for the Spellbound Witch's Broom, you can decorate your party for very little.

Postage is £2.20 for orders under £20, £3.95 for orders up to £45 and free for orders over £45.

Thanks to missgem @ HUKD

I recently got a Scooby Doo Halloween t-shirt from Fabric Flavours and it was one of those “little treat” buys that made me gooey inside. Costing £16 for a t-shirt it is not a cheap buy, not even slightly, but the quality and cool factor put this in the value for money bracket for me.

The shirt is made from dark grey cotton marl and the sleeves and neck are cut to show off a lime green rib. Printed on the collar is the traditional Scooby Doo catchphrase, “Zoinks!” and printed on the front is the Scooby Gang racing off to solve a mystery.

When I first got the t-shirt I was a bit worried. The print looks as if it was put on the shirt while it was a bit wrinkled as there are small strips of colour missing. Closer examination revealed that this was by design to create that slightly old and dishevelled look. I like it but I do take points off for it not being quite obvious enough to not look like a case of bad screen printing.

The quality of the shirt is amazing actually. I can really feel a difference between this cotton marl and the el cheapo fabric of her “buy one get 100 free” shirts that fill her wardrobe. Her being my daughter, of course. On the back of the shirt there is a spooooky forest printed in black. This doesn’t have the intentional lines and looks really good.

The print of the Scooby gang is robust too. It has endured four washes and none of it is peeling off. You can get the t-shirt in sizes 1-6 years old and, my other favourite, is the Ghosbusters “I aint afraid of no ghosts” print on a babygrow – I wish they had that in my size…

Fancy getting all kitted out for 31 October and the Halloween madness but refuse to spend a ton of cash? Or perhaps you don’t really have the budget to spend on a fancy costume and don’t want your kids to feel left out? Either way, there are brilliant ways of making cheap and charming Halloween costumes and I’ve gone and found as many as I can.

One idea is to come up with a list of ideas for your child’s Halloween costume – ghost, witch, zombie and so forth – and to then go and find items in your closet to match. While cutting holes into an old sheet may be considered a little passé, what about those black stockings and black shirts you have lying around? Ninjas wear black…

Jessica Quirk is a blogger who did exactly this; she came up with ideas for her Halloween costume and then went ahead and made them. There is no way I could ever make a costume as magnificent as her Marie Antoinette one, but if you scroll down and look at her other ideas, you’ll soon be inspired. She has literally taken bits and pieces of old clothes and created magic.

Park Resorts have some fairly cost effective Halloween caravan breaks going at the moment and would work really well as a long Halloween weekend break if you fancy getting away from it all. The prices range from around £159 for three nights.

• Click here to get going with Park Resorts

Park Resorts are offering lots of fun and spooky activities with Halloween themed activities for the kids along with quizzes and themed parties too. For those of you who don’t have big houses or live in flats, this could be a fab way of having a Halloween party without the squash and the mess.

Over the weekend and during the week there are fancy dress parades and themed shows with caravans going in the bronze and gold categories for the weekend. You will find spots in Scotland, North East England, Yorkshire, Essex and more. There are 14 pages of these special offers and themed Halloween breaks so it may take you a while to find one!

Thanks to missgem at HUKD!

Thanks to the fact that I grew up in a country that had no clue about Halloween, I only ever got to experience this spooky festival vicariously through bad American horror movies and books. I would jealously look at their funky cakes and carvings and wish for it myself.

Now that I am able to celebrate this utterly brilliant and mad festival, I have had to learn how to do everything from scratch. Like, how do you carve a pumpkin? Yeah, sounds easy but how do you carve a pumpkin that actually looks like something recognisable. The only reason my Indiana Jones pumpkin looked like him was because I stuck a hat on it. Same goes for my Darth Vader pumpkin – it was all about the hat.

Then there was the fact that, after having lit a candle inside it and enjoyed the mad dancing shadows, I had no idea that within 24 hours a terrifying green fungus would grow inside. It makes sense that it would but at the time I was aghast. So, to save the rest of you from my mad mishaps I have gone out and asked the experts – how do you carve a pumpkin, properly?

Writing this particular review took me on a trip down memory lane. Woolworths was always the first store we headed to at Halloween when my step children were younger. We'd pick up cobweb spray (for my step son's costume) and accessories like pitchforks and witch's hats. And bags of sweets to hand out.

That particular shop, at the top of our road, is now gone. Of course. My youngest son called it the 'present shop', and although I'd have thought he was too young to remember Woolworths, he still mourns its passing.

But the retail chain lives on, in cyberspace at least. And it is still selling all that stuff that you really need. Here we received a number of items with a Halloween theme from Woolworths, and I gave them to mum of one, Tracy, to test for us. Here's what she thought.

How many people in this country go trick or treating? It isn't a new thing, or at least it isn't around here. I first used to go out with my step children trick or treating on Halloween around 15 years ago. They're in their 20s now. For the last couple of years I've gone around the same route with my son, and some of our friends.

Early evening of course. After 6:30pm we take in the decorations, and blow the candles out on the carved pumpkins. It isn't so pleasant having large groups of teens knocking on your door. But I digress.

Normally I go for the budget option. Big bags of whatever is going at the pound shop. I did go overboard one year on big bags of lollipops. I had so many left over, I put them in a bag in the cupboard. When I pulled them out the following year, they'd sort of melted into one big mass! Rather sticky.

Lots of magazines and websites at this time of year seem to be full of tips on making your own treats. And I've seen this put forward as a budget option on the frugal parenting sites I subscribe to - most of these are US based though.

Frankly, I can't see how you can get more budget than the Pound shop compared to making your own, but maybe I'm missing something. Or maybe we just get a lot more kids trick or treating around here!

So I put the question to our PlayPennies collective parenting mind. What did they think?

The Bluw Kids Airhedz popstar kit is down from £7.99 to only £3.99 which is a nice saving of £4 off the original price. This is a hilarious and brilliant gimmick that’s on sale just in time for the dress up fun of Halloween.

• Click here to get inflated with Amazon

The AirHedz giant inflatables are a cool new way for kids to dress up. The set comes with a piece of huge inflatable headgear and an inflatable accessory that are reminiscent of a specific popstar. These are ace for birthday parties, Halloween, and general dress-up fun as all you need to do is blow them up and stick them on.

I am sceptical about the one size fits all thing though, not all heads are created equal and this may prove to be a problem for kids with smaller skulls. This particular set is for girls dressing up as a girl popstar as it is, clearly, a head of enormous pink hair. There are plenty of other kits like cowboy and aliens but these are slightly more expensive.

Thanks to Hyperell at HUKD!

Use this code to get 20% off Halloween costumes sold through the Clothing At Tesco shop in its Facebook page.

Click here to use your Tesco discount: log in to Facebook first!

• Discount: 20%
• Promotional code: GHOSTS
• Expires: 23rd October, 2011

To use this code, log in to your Facebook page. Try the link above or do a search for Clothing At Tesco. When you get to the Clothing At Tesco page, click on the Like button. Look on the left-hand side of the page, under their profile picture, and you'll see a link for Spooky Halloween Shop. Click on that.

This will open their Facebook shop. Choose the costume that you want. When you click on it, you'll be transferred to the F&F Clothing At Tesco main website. Use the code GHOSTS to get 20% off when you go through checkout. Look for a the Promotional Code and eCoupons button.

Delivery is free if you can collect from a store.

Thanks to goonertillidie at HUKD!

Just in time for Halloweeny goodness, here is a cute and spooky deal from Red House. You can nab this ace Usborne Activities Spooky Sticker book for only £2.49 and get it delivered for free using the code outlined below.

• Click here to get spooky with Red House

From haunted houses to ghostly pirate ships, eerie vampire bats to dancing skeletons, this brilliantly creative book is pure wicked fun. The book comes with 450 ghoulish stickers to add to the spinetingling scenes and will give kids lots of fun in the lead up to Halloween.

This book is ace for kids over the age of five, is paperback and has around 24 pages. I enjoy the Usborne books actually and have nabbed this for my child as I reckon we can both have fun playing with it together. If nothing else it is a great way to encourage reading.

If you’d like to get this delivered for free either spend over £15 or use the code FREE116.

Thanks to mkb_1980 at HUKD!

I'd never heard of Ickee Stickeez before we were sent some to review and it was with some trepidation that the Ickee Stickeez parcel was opened.  Let's face it, with a name like theirs who KNEW what was lurking inside!

After drawing straws it was decided that Tamsin should get the task of taking these weird little guys home with her, to inflict on her family and friends.

"I took two packs of Ickee Stickeez home with me," she says, "and whilst they both looked quite different, if I am honest, I couldn't figure out why they were different or what the point was for making them as such."

This was NOT a good start for the Ickee Stickeez as, for Tamsin, this was an immediate bad point in her view.

Wooo! The spooky season is nearly upon us so what better time to start making and baking scrummy Halloween recipes and creepy critters than right now? I’ve gone out to find the absolute best of the best recipes to share with you because these are the ones that I use over and over again. Even when it isn’t Halloween. And some of them are so darn clever that they deserve a Hall of Fame all of their own.

Okay, if you don’t know what the Sorting Hat is, I’m pretty sure the rest of this deal won’t mean that much to you, but if you do, and you already have your preference for start of term, read on!

Toys R Us is offering Harry Potter fans a free Sorting Hat worth £14.99 with any spend of £30 or more on Harry Potter goodies.  Offer is valid  until 14 August,  and you need to add the hat to your basket, and it will automatically be reset to zero once you add £30 worth of Harry Potter goodies.

• Click here to see the multibuy offers on Harry Potter goodies at Toys R Us

In the offer you’ll find such treasures as the Lego Harry Potter Quidditch Match for £22.99 or Freeing Dobby for £10.99 (slightly more than you’d pay at Amazon for either, but you’d have plenty enough for your free Sorting Hat).

If you’re going for the full outfit, you can find a Gryffindor dressing up costume for kids aged 8 – 10 years for £19.99 (this has excellent reviews too) and for £14.99, add the Infra Red  Battling Wand of your choice.

Depending on how keen you are to have the Sorting Hat, it might be worth price comparing with Amazon, which is a little cheaper on most of the above individual items.

So, is it worth it? Well, I’ll leave that up to you to decide. Let me just say this: Halloween is only 8 weeks away…..