Hallowe’en is more than a single night of trick-or-treating. From bakes to order and games to play through to makeup inspo and decor ideas, here’s how to make the very most of spooky season. . .

Vamp up your makeup

Gallery1

Lottie London, the always-innovative and always-affordable beauty brand, has teamed up with Warner Bros. to create a makeup collection inspired by top teen drama The Vampire Diaries. Called Love Sucks, it’s released just in time for Hallowe’en and spans blush, lipstick, lip gloss, face pens, an eye liner and stamp and a covetable 12-pan eye palette, all priced £4.95-£7.95.

Yes, it’s good fun - take the colour-change blush and lipstick, which go from black to blood on application - but don’t dismiss the range as a gimmick: every product is wearable and hard-working, meaning you’ll use it long after fancy-dress season ends.

Standouts are the two colour-changers, which shift pigment in response to skin’s pH to flattering effect, and the palette, which spans impressively buttery mattes, light-bouncing foils and full-on glitters across nudes to blues and blacks.

Give blood this autumn and you could win the entire Love Sucks collection, thanks to Lottie London’s #bloodforbeauty initiative, launched to help boost waning NHS stocks - visit lottie.london/pages/blood-for-beauty to take part.

See and shop the range at lottie.london/collections/vampire-diaries

Deck the Hallowe’en halls

Few things heighten hygge like the glow of fairy lights and/or the flicker of candle lanterns. That’s my excuse for decorating the house for Hallowe’en on October 1, and I’m sticking to it.

Think Hallowe’en decs are by definition tacky? Think again: Lights4Fun, the UK’s largest indie lighting brand, sells elevated seasonal ornaments, from blown glass pumpkin lights and lanterns to faux foliage garlands and wreaths.

I’ve been hunting for autumnal fairy lights forever and these little pumpkins, pictured, are perfection: powered by a compact battery pack, for ease of display along a windowsill or fire lintel, each shade is blown from the prettiest mottled glass and lit from within by low-energy LEDs. Thanks to the warm white bulbs and orange shades, you won’t find a cosier glow.

Indeed, the lights were such a success, I’ve since purchased a standalone light-up glass pumpkin and a faux oak leaf wreath too, both of which are equally impressive in design, performance and value for money.

10 Mottled Pumpkin Battery Fairy Lights, £24.99, lights4fun.co.uk

Order some spooky cookies

Gallery1

Hallowe’en treats don’t come sweeter than this. Blondies Kitchen - the Covent Garden cookie company founded by fellow blonde foodies and professionally trained chefs, Kristelle and Chelsie - has released a Hallowe’en collection for direct delivery, spanning candy-studded ready-to-bake dough roll through to giant ready-to-eat cookies, topped with personalised icing and sugar bats, skulls, spiders and spirits.

Though I’ve not ordered from the Hallowe’en collection (yet), I can vouch for the fact Blondies Kitchen cookies themselves are perfection: crispy on the edge, chewy in the middle, loaded with flavour - everything an American-style cookie should be.

My family tried a sharing box back in the summer which, stacked with 50 mini cookies in best-selling flavours, was a huge hit. Standouts were The Blondie (white chocolate chip and biscoff paste) and Klassic With A K (vanilla and Kinder bar).

The Hallowe’en collection starts at £12.50. Browse and buy at blondieskitchen.co.uk. Order before noon for next-day delivery.

Put Gothic pen to paper

Gallery1

On the basis they’re a nightmare to recycle, I gave up disposable biros/rollerballs a few years back, switching to old-school fountain pens charged with bottled inks (cartridges are well and good, but they’re still little bits of plastic, most of which is unrecyclable).

When I saw this skull-and-crossbones fountain pen by BENU, a young Armenian brand fast gaining reputation for its out-of-the-box designs, my inner Goth couldn’t resist. A cute and compact shape, it’s light without feeling insubstantial and the nib is a delight to write with, producing pleasingly plump, free-flowing lines.

Wanting to be able to charge it with bottled ink - very short-barrelled by design, it comes with cartridges as standard - I searched high and low for a converter dinky enough to fit and finally struck gold with a Kaweco Sport rubber bulb. Sticking with the Gothic theme, I’ve loaded up with Diamine Ink in Writer’s Blood; as the name suggests, a delicious, thick, darkest red.

BENU Minima Classic Black Skull Fountain Pen, £63, and Diamine Ink in Writer’s Blood, both at penheaven.co.uk

Do an autumnal paint job

Gallery1

You don’t have to be a skilled nail artist or have the budget for a salon visit to give your mani and/or pedi a Hallowe’en vibe. The new autumn/winter colour collection from ASHE London, the vegan, cruelty-free, 77% natural-origin, small-batch British polish brand, has all the shades you need to create a knock-out autumnal nail look at home.

Whether worn solo or combined by colour-blocking, Ashbourne (pumpkin orange), Olive-Morris (Frankenstein green), Vivien (stormy-sea teal) and Brittan-Brown (dark chocolate) are all striking alternatives to our usual October go-to, black. Silky and seamless to apply, the polish formula is also quick-drying, richly pigmented and tough-wearing, lasting (almost) chip-free for up to a week.

Plus it’s created using Go Green Technology, a process which, say the ASHE London team, “utilises natural, renewable resources to reduce our environmental footprint”, and 10% of profits goes to two charities: Cianna’s Smile, which offers support and education to families affected by Sickle Cell Anaemia, and Bloody Good Period, which provides period products to refugees, people in the asylum system and people living in poverty.

ASHE London nail colours, £15 each, ashelondon.com

Get (Beetle)juice on the go

How cute is this? For fans of Beetlejuice - the cult 1988 Tim Burton movie starring Michael Keaton as the green-haired, stripy-suited spirit of the title, now poised to get a sequel - powerbanks can’t come cooler.

Taking the shape of a cartoon Beetlejuice and capable of storing 2500mAh for use on the go, it’s part of the horror heroes collection from PowerSquad, known for making banks both robust and long-lasting, and is guaranteed to amp up your desk/sideboard/car/handbag as well as your appliances.

Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, we say. . .

PowerSquad Beetlejuice Powerbank (Horror), £14.99, thumbsup.com

Play graveyard games

If you’re looking for a Hallowe’en-themed game for all ages to play, Bones from Kikkerland, the international brand known for championing independent designers, is ideal.

Like dominoes, but played with little bones in place of the traditional tiles, all the usual rules of the game apply; to increase stakes in the run-up to All Hallows’ Eve, we add a ‘trick or treat’ aspect too, with forfeits paid by the losers and sweetie lucky dips awarded to the winners.

As ever with Kikkerland products, production values are high. Plus Bones is being sold by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, which means your purchase helps fund a lifesaving service.

Kikkerland Bones Domino Set, £20, shop.rnli.org

Creep out the kitchen

Gingerbread skeletons, garlanded spiderwebs, grinning Jack O’Lanterns: if you’re a Hallowe’en fan, Emma Bridgewater’s new pottery prints are irresistible.

Choose from Biscuits, which features custard ‘screams’ and bony gingerbread men; Pumpkins, clustered with lanterns and bats; and Cobwebs, strung with webs and spiders.

All are sponge-printed in a classic orange and purple Hallowe’en palette and, with pieces ranging from egg cups to mugs to bowls, plates, platters and tureens, prices start at £7.

My favourite piece, without doubt, is this out-size slogan mug. It’s crying out to be filled with pumpkin-spice latte or mallow-topped hot chocolate and drunk while watching Hocus Pocus 2 for the 20th time since its release last month (haters: save your breath to cool your witch’s brew).

See and shop at emmabridgewater.co.uk