At the end of October, it will be the one year anniversary of my blog and Martha project. So it seemed fitting to have a party, in Martha’s honor (and mine of course). Halloween seemed like the logical choice. I bought Martha’s special Halloween issue of Living and got some ideas from there, but from the start my biggest challenge has been finding a way to take Martha’s ideas and make them work for a party that my kids’ friends will enjoy. Dude Martha is 11 and in middle school. Teen Martha is a high school senior. So, from the beginning, I’ve had to try to find ways to adjust Martha’s approach to make it work for a younger crowd.

First off, I wanted to make Martha invitations. She made one on her show that Dude Martha vetoed. No way would he give his friends an invitation that had a removable black eye mask. I turned to Martha’s site. He was intrigued by an invitation that involves making plaster casts of your finger and putting them in boxes with the invitation written on them. I vetoed that one – too much work and too gory. Finally I thought I found the perfect solution. Martha has a link to Pingg.com where you can create “free” online invitations that are printable.

Unfortunately, after we spent some time designing it, we realized you can’t actually print it out unless you want to pay them to mail it as a postcard. Sigh. Back to the drawing board. Mr. MarthaAndMe came to the rescue and whipped up an invitation himself using some Microsoft do-hickey. To be honest, it bothered me that the border on this goes around the whole paper, not just the ‘page’ you see, but I was done with this. Dude Martha handed them out. Teen Martha will issue Facebook invites to her peeps.

Once we formally invited people, I had to get to work on the party itself. I went out on a shopping expedition. I had only a few “must-haves” and of course I can’t find them anywhere! I want to make the gauze tablecloth with black tissue paper border that Martha has in the special issue. It sounds very simple. I found gauze material Joann’s, but I can’t find black tissue paper. Very disappointing. I’m going to see if I can order it online, but I’m sure the shipping will cost more than the tissue paper itself. I’m also looking for cheap doll body parts – we’re going to make “buried alive” cupcakes where a hand stick out the top of the cupcake.

From the Halloween Living special issue, I’m planning to make the white cake with marshmallow ghosts, guacamole with blue tortilla chips, pumpkin spiderweb cake, puff pastry and cheese pumpkins, and spinach and ricotta skulls. I’ve got some other food ideas I gathered from other sources as well. The food is definitely under control.

We’ve got some games/activities planned, but need more, so if you have suggestions, please share! We’re going to do the thing where you have boxes with different “body parts” in them (like peeled grapes for eyes) and kids will have to guess what they think it is. We’re going to do a mummy wrap contest – see who can wrap their friend in toilet paper first. We’ll also do Martha’s donut on a string contest (see who can eat it first with no hands). If the weather is decent, I want to hide little plastic pumpkins of candy outside. We also plan eyeball pong – a ping pong ball with an eye drawn on which kids will try to bounce into plastic cups to win prizes. I need more though, so please share any thoughts! Martha has a suggestion for a playlist, but it turns out Napster has several, so we’ll use those.

As for decorations, I plan to make Martha’s gourd totems, lit with Xmas lights. We will carve some pumpkins of course. I bought some spiderweb material to hang, and some crime scene tape. We have a friend who may be able to loan us some of his decorations to use.

I’m thinking of dressing up as Martha. I have blue eyes and blond hair about the same length (although mine is curly so Teen Martha would have to work some magic on that). What do you think would work for the outfit? Twin set and pearls? Or try to look like Martha on her show, in a cotton shirt and khakis and heels? If I could find a stuffed French bulldog I would carry that. I don’t know how anyone will know I am Martha.

So, as you can see, plans are under way here for a big party. I’ll share more as we get closer to the big day.