Creepy Science Lab - Halloween Party

I know Halloween is over, but i just HAD to share this blog with you even if it is late. I did promise you in my last blog post about the DIY Fake Blood - Tablecloth Decoration that I would follow up with other Halloween decor I was working on. The friend who offered their home up for the Halloween party really wanted to have a Creepy Science Lab theme.

The first part of this blog I will talk about some of the DIY stuff I put together to match her theme. The second part of the blog will show how the overall theme turned out when everything was put in place. (Please note that the lab stuff was borrowed and so i can only share with you the cost of things I helped to make.)

This first one was really easy and cheap. You will need mason jars, yellow food coloring, and rubber bats, rodents, spiders or whatever other creepy realistic rodents/pests you can find. Rubber rodents are $1 a piece, Mason jars $1 to $2, food coloring is around $3 and so it should cost about $10 to make 3 "mad scientist jars".

We left the rat alone in one jar. His beady red eyes looked awesome in the yellow water. The other jars we cut off the bats wings and put each wing and the body in separate jars. You just drop in around 10 drops of yellow food coloring and fill the jar with water.

Tip: A lot of sauces you buy at the store come in mason jars. Peel off the labels and reuse them for these kinds of projects.

Ripped up black curtains help set the mood for the room, which of course is always "dark and creepy" when it comes to Halloween. We took old curtains and shredded them using scissors. (If you don't have any black curtains lying around I suggest checking out your local thrift store.) In the above picture I'm showing you how to create realistic wear and tear on "50 years left behind" curtains. 

One method is to twist a piece of the curtain with your fingers, then cut a chunk of that off and that will make a jagged hole in the curtain. Another way is to get a pair of scissors (preferably dull blades) and instead of cutting straight, pull down tight on the curtain and rip up with scissors. This makes it so that your tears and cuts aren't all in a straight line.

We really scored when we found these mirrored wall candle holders at the thrift store. I believe we paid $1 a piece for these and $.20 a candle. We took black Plasti Dip ($10 a can) and sprayed that over it to get our desired look. The bonus on Plasti Dip is it peels off if you want your item to go back to the way it originally looked. We taped the mirrors before we sprayed them to get a clean look.

Well that about sums up the DIY projects I worked on for this party. I will point out things in the pictures below that we were able to find at a cheap price. Again the lab stuff is real and was on loan :)

Thrift store items: gold tray $1, candle holders $1 each, gray metal box $2, gray yarn $1 (and seriously what a cool "dust" effect that made)

Loved the use of the electronic tea candles. You can get a 12 pack of these on Amazon for around $10. Great thing is you can use them for many other events too.

There are some real brains and some fake brains in this picture above :)

Bought those pop up paper wall spiders you see above for $2 at Michaels. It was on clearance right before Halloween and was Martha Steward brand. The sconce was $2 at the thrift store.

Gold candle holder was $1 thrift store find. The light and cabinet above are covered in "creepy cloth" and bought at the Dollar Tree. Hard to tell from the picture but the purple light bulb was a cool effect in person.

Our guests even made "creepy" snacks and bought wines that had Halloween fitting names. It was a great night out and we had a lot of fun with this party.