When celebrating Halloween with little ones, there’s a fine line between fun creepy and scary creepy. Lucky for me—a firm believer that the creepier the better—my kids are finally old enough to handle scary Halloween. I’ve spent a lot of time perfecting the safe creepy Halloween thing, though, and my favorite theme is mad scientist. If you’re looking for a rated-G entree into Halloween spookiness, these mad scientist party recipes will set the perfect hair-raising mood. You know, in a ha-ha way.

These monster guts (above and top) from Sugar and Cloth are a perfect safe-creepy specimen. They are also amazingly over the top with Oreos, marshmallows, and cool whip, oh my! Halloween is in full effect with this silly snack.

While at Sugar and Cloth, you should also check out this Jell-o Petri Dish snack. It’s so clever and easy, too. One more thing while on Ashley’s site: tips on using dry ice. It’s a critical prop for any mad scientist party.

This idea for Candy Potions at Housing a Forest is such a smart way to keep kids busy using candy. Sure they’ll sneak tastes here and there—it is Halloween, after all—but you’ll be amazed at how much fun they have keeping the candy out of their mouths and in beakers and test tubes where they can make their own candy potions. Then they’ll eat it all—ha!

I love the idea of using this spooky chemistry set from Pottery Barn to serve drinks drinks. Fill the tubes, vases and flask with Slime Punch from Parents or our easy blood punch. If you don’t feel like shelling out nearly $60 bucks for this full set, grab this test tube set for just $8 from our Amazon affiliate instead.

No mad scientist party is complete without eyeballs, of course. There are all manner of eyeball recipes on the internet, but this Halloween eyeball recipe from Kids Kubby using Babybel cheese is among the easiest. Plus I have a weakness for the wax wrapped cheese.

Every mad scientist stocks her lab with slimy worms, because you never know when you’ll have to splice and dice them for an important experiment. Uh, right? Yes, right—at least when you have this awesomely fun, juice-sweetened gummy worm recipe from Hilah Cooking. So fun!

Even mad scientists like healthy foods every once and a while, and these creepy carrot fingers from my site One Hungry Mama are a perfect healthy treat paired with hummus. All you need for these are carrots, almond slivers, and a little cream cheese.

Need more holiday recipe inspiration for Halloween? Check out our archives, plus don’t miss our Halloween Coolness Pinterest board.