Halloween 2016 review round-up - featuring Poundland and HARIBO

The days are getting shorter, the temperature is dropping and the shops are stocked with spooky, seasonal goodies. Yes, it's nearly Halloween, one of my favourite times of the year!  We enjoy celebrating the season and having some family fun with a scary twist.

If you want to enjoy Halloween, but want to keep to a budget, check out Poundland for some great items at just £1 each. From decorations to fancy dress to sweeties to tableware, you will find loads of fabulously themed things to keep the kids happy. We were sent a selection from their range.

This year's designs include a rather cute family of monsters, who appear on everything from paper plates to trick or treat bags. They also feature on the cupcake set that contains cake cases and toppers. Perfect for making some spooky cupcakes.  The tableware is excellent value and makes entertaining easy. Plates come in packs of 20, napkins in a pack of 30 and cups in a pack of 40, so there will be plenty to cater for a Halloween party. You can dress the house with Halloween decorations including character lights and bunting.

Poundland also has some good dressing up accessories, Freddy picked out a Freddy Krueger style bladed glove so he can dress like his namesake this year. Don't forget to stock up on some sweets for Trick or Treaters, which you can hand out from Poundland's Trick or Treat bowl.

HARIBO always do some great seasonal limited edition sweet packs, which are perfect for parties or for handing out to the little monsters who come knocking on Halloween night. Haribo kindly sent us a selection in a spooky package, which we will enjoy distributing to our local Trick or Treaters.

This year, Haribo have a Halloween Duo pumpkin pack, Trick or Treat mini bags, TangfasTricks and Scaremix ready to please the kids and the young at heart grown-ups!

The Duo pack comes in a lidded pumpkin shaped container, which looks great on a table laid with Halloween goodies. Inside the tub is two large bags of Haribo Halloween sweets (Scaremix and TangfasTricks) which can be poured into each of the divided halves of the bowl. It makes a lovely colourful display.

Haribo Scaremix comes in an assortment of spooky designs and flavours: Dracula Rings in Blood Orange & Apple, Apple & Blackcurrant and Blackcurrant & Blueberry; Boo Bears in Cherry, Lime and Blood Orange; Witches' Brew in Blood Orange; Vampire Heart in Blackcurrant & Bubblegum and Monster's Eyeball in Toffee Apple. They come in funky colours too, adding a Halloween twist to some old classics.

The TangfasTricks offer an opportunity for daring sweet eaters to dive in and take a gamble on which sweet they're going to eat! They look normal enough, but not all the sweets are tangy - some of them are super sour and some are HOT! Will the one you choose be a treat or a trick?  It will definitely make for a fun game this Halloween.

I hope they will do a veggie friendly range one day so I too can indulge in the happy world of Haribo!

Celebrating Halloween on a Budget with Poundland

Yet again the shelves in Poundland are being turned over to the seasonal products celebrating Halloween.  A fantastic array of spooky goodies from tableware, fancy dress, decorations, confectionery and bakeware are available and all for the bargain price of just £1!  This makes it so easy to budget and keep tabs on how much you are spending, while ensuring you get everything you need to make your Halloween party frightfully good fun! 

We were challenged to see what we could buy with £20 and I was very impressed with our haul.  I love the BOOO! themed tableware that they have this year.  The spooky ghost can be found on cups, plates, napkins, tableclothes and bowls to set the scene for a fantastic Halloween party.  The bowls and plates come in packs of 20 which is excellent value for just a £1, and the cups come in a pack of 40.  Plenty to go round.  The black plastic cutlery set is a very useful addition to the party table and the novelty pumpkin straws are a lot of fun and come in packs of 8 in either orange or purple.

The BOOO! theme continues with the cupcake stand and cupcake decorating set.  These are some of my favourite items this year.  The stand is made of sturdy card and the decoration set includes cake cases and toppers to make some easy Halloween themed cupcakes.  The stand filled with cakes makes a real show stopper table decoration!

The jelly moulds that I picked up are absolutely genius.  There is a brain and a severed hand mould which will be used to make some scary jelly.  Kids love jelly...they will love a green Frankenstein's hand jelly and a pink brain jelly even more so!

The cookie cutter set is a great addition to the kitchen at Halloween, perfect for making biscuits or cutting out little sandwiches.  The set includes a church, a cat, a ghost, a bat, a pumpkin and a gravestone.  You could also use them to make fondant icing shapes to decorate a Halloween cake.

Spooky balloons are always a hit with kids and the pack of orange and black ones are great value at just £1 for 18. I resent paying more than that for something that is probably going to end up being popped by the end of the night.  Why pay more?!  They can really help make a room look the part when strung up in bunches.  Poundland have heaps of other ornaments, window stickers, lights, toys and decorations to transform your home into a haunted house.

The Inflatable Kids' Seat was a great find.  It's like a black rubber ring with a bottom decorated with skulls. It will give Freddy somewhere fun to sit while he watches some spooky cartoons on TV!

I love the Halloween costume accessories.  I bought a two pack of Masquerade masks.  They are handy to have for impromptu dressing up and are good to have at a Halloween party for the guests to wear if they aren't in fancy dress.  Masks add an element of mystery and intrigue and are perfect for Halloween.  Other fancy dress accessories include hats, tights, special effects make-up, plastic weapons, glow stick jewellery, wings, deeny boppers, false nails and eyelashes.

The confectionery range at Poundland represents superb choice and value.  With brands such as Swizzels Matlow, Maom, Fruitella, Chupa Chups and HARIBO you know you are getting good quality.  Other confectionery items include Voodoo Candy Charms, Gummy Eye Balls, Spooky Popping Candy and Skull Sucker Lollies. I loved the Flying Sorcerors in orange and black.  Perfect for Trick or Treaters.  Other top brands of snacks such as Oreo, Cadbury, Fruit Factory, Mr Kipling, Pom Bear and Walkers offer alternatives to sweets and are great fayre for a party.

Take a look online to see the full Halloween range available at Poundland:  www.poundland.co.uk.