Easy Halloween Tips: Best of Parent Hacks

Halloween should be easy, creative, and, most of all, FUN. Here are some of the best Halloween tips we've collected here at Parent Hacks. We add new tips as they come in; come back often!

Getting ready

• How do you prepare a toddler for his first Halloween?
• Never again forget how much Halloween candy to buy
• Combine door-to-door trick-or-treating with a block party for grownup fun
• Favorite Halloween books? Talk amongst yourselves.
• "All Hallows Eve" tells the story of the Halloween Fairy (you know, the one who exchanges the candy for a toy?)
• Consider keeping the Halloween costume packed away till October 31
• Skip the Halloween candy! Trick-or-treat for UNICEF
• Halloween craft: Turn a canvas tote into reusable trick or treat bag
• A "trick" to help kids remember to say 'thank you'
• How to make a Halloween horror movie with your kids
• Halloween: it's okay if you're not prepared

Easy Halloween Costumes

• No-sew modular Halloween costumes (a huge Hedra favorite around here)
• No-prep costume: Baby Einstein
• Baby lotion takes the face paint off
• Turn Build-a-Bear Workshop outfits into baby Halloween costumes
• Self-adhesive DOT-It LED light as Halloween headlamp
  
• No Halloween costume yet? Swap!
• Getting a too-big costume hat to fit
• FlashBrite reflective stick-on patches add nighttime visibility to Halloween costumes
  
• Halloween costume hack: turn laptop bag pouches into play holsters

Halloween candy, treats and toys

• Tootsie Pop ghosts as decoration and hand-outs
• Watch out for lead in Halloween props and toys
• Martha Stewart's Spiderweb Cheesecake: A hack
• How to have an allergy-free Halloween
• Give toys instead of candy
• No-effort entertainment: glow sticks
• Non-candy treat: Halloween-themed erasers

Halloween Decorations

• Tootsie Pop ghosts as decoration and hand-outs
• Halloween hack: Make a paper jack-o'-lantern
• Plastic pumpkin head Chia Pets

Jack O'lanterns and pumpkins

• Prolong the life of cut pumpkins with petroleum jelly
• Cut the jack-o'-lantern hole in the bottom of the pumpkin
• Let your toddler glue a face on the pumpkin
• Hollow out the Jack-o'-lantern pumpkin with an ice cream scoop
• "Paint" mini pumpkins with colored Sharpies

After Halloween

• Store the Halloween books with the decorations
• Storing vinyl cling decorations
• Expand the dress-up wardrobe with discounted Halloween costumes
• How do you dole out the Halloween candy?
• Halloween Fairy swaps candy for toys
• Buy your kid's Halloween candy
• Use excess Halloween candy as cookie ingredients
• Save leftover candy for holiday gingerbread houses
• Still got Halloween candy lying around? Give it to the "goblins."
• More ideas for using up the Halloween candy
• Long-term thinking about Halloween candy management

Photo by Fabio