DIY Haunted 1920's Party (Murder Mystery)

Though this is our third annual party, this is the second we will post on this blog. Even if we could find the information (it's hiding somewhere in packed boxes) , I'm not sure we'd publish it because it has so many flaws. However year 5 will be the same theme to celebrate 5 years. So not this years party but the year after. We've been gradually improving our methods and strategies for how the parties will run and so far this is what we've come up with.

Just a forewarning! This Post contains links to content intended for mature audiences and may contain some of the following themes: drugs, sex, crime, alcohol abuse, mental illness, ect.

Basic Information: After several months of planning and MANY changes to clues and story line we eventually came up with a story driven by a lesbian couple in the 1920s. You can find the ever updated rules on this page. This particular party was designed for two female hosts, Scarlet and Peach, but we included John as well by having him be the ghost of a caretaker. He ended up serving drinks and feeding our guests as well as helping supervise the party and take guesses. I have to say having him around for that role proved to be very helpful, but it's not necessary. And just in case you were wondering this party was written for 11 guests and IS SET IN MODERN TIMES so the hosts are ghosts.

Setting: We dressed up the community room with cobwebs, spiders and vintage decorations like chandeliers, I made mine with paper and string pearls but there are SEVERAL tutorials online to take inspiration from. I also chose to use flowers from hobby lobby that were brown in antique style vases we bought for less than $2 a piece at goodwill. I suggest using a coupon on waiting for a sale at a craft store to buy the flowers. Unfortunately many of the props and decorations did not make their way into happening as we moved several times but I have a few sketches of some inspiration for DIYs I was planning that I highly suggest if you have the time/ ability to do so.

We also used my laptop to play a 1920's track that I purchased on itunes. Just a side note. I opted to make a simple invitation using a strip of dark patterned paper and layering information printed on white printer paper in the center under where I embossed "You're Invited" in gold at the top of the paper layered on black card stock. I included a small card with their character bio, RSVP information and dress code.

Dinner: This year we opted to rent our chairs, dishware and black linens. We also had balloons for the "open bar" which we served mock-tails, You can locate all of our concoctions and on this page. For dinner we chose this crock-pot minestrone soup recipe and bought potato rolls from the supermarket which we heated up 10 minutes before the guests arrived.
We also served apitizered which consisted of tiny sandwiches using sourdough and white bread and my chicken salad recipe as well as cheese cubes.

Writing and Details: I've also included pdfs of our survey we handed out after the party, the new and improved guess sheet and the party story which we based all of our clues off of and the character bios we sent out with the invitations.

And since we didn't put the answer on the clue page here it is:

Who: Mrs. Peacock
Motive: Mental Illness, thinks Peach is possessing Scarlet
Method:Strangulation (with a silk scarf)

Also pertaining to the page of clues, I have them numbered on my own personal print ous in the order I have them typed. They are sorted by type # 1-10 are alibi clues, # 11-16 are method/how clues and #17-30 are motive clues and #31-53 are other clues that either mislead or confirm other things.

The revealing clue #s are as follows Alibi, #10, 43 How, #11 Motive, #22,33

Another change is that we filmed a movie that depiceted what originally happened back in 1920 that our modern day guests had to solve. However this movie was made for personal use only and can't be posted so I suggest you film your own OR read aloud a legend of sorts to get your guests interested.

I considered re-writing the original version of the story which was intended to be hosted by John and I but I decided instead to post what I ended up using as we are already hard at work on this years party and I need to clean out my planner and file box. I decided to keep this post shorter by dividing it up into seperate pages for you to look at so you can find things easier, hopefully this makes it a little easier to use. I hope you enjoy and please let us know if you try this out, we love to hear from you!

Until next time,

John and Courtney aka Plum and Peach