For the pepper "people", place the milk chocolate in a microwave safe bowl and melt in the microwave for 30 secs to 1 minute.Use a toothpick or skewer to dab a little of the melted chocolate to the back of the candy eyes and stick them on the mini sweet peppers. For the Mandarin orange "pumpkins", peel the oranges and stick half a pretzel stick on to the top to resemble a pumpkin. You can use celery sticks for this as well, instead of pretzel sticks.
For the Oreo "spiders", separate the cookies. Halve the pretzel sticks and place them like the spider's legs. Close the cookie to secure the "legs".
For the string cheese "ghosts", keep the string cheese in wrapper and draw faces on it with a sharpie permanent marker.
For the string cheese "broomsticks", cut up each string cheese in thirds. Pierce the pretzel stick into the string cheese on one end. On the other end, cut up little strands of the cheese or pull out some, halfway through to resemble the bushy end of a broomstick.
Place salsa verde or guacamole in a bowl and scatter BOO chips around it. These are ghost shaped chips that you get in most grocery stores around this time.
Pour out Halloween bunny graham crackers and sour jelly pumpkins into little bowls and place them on the board.
Start with a large enough wooden board, cutting board or even a large platter, tray or baking sheet will do. Put little things like the pumpkin sour candy and the bunny crackers in little bowls. Start by placing bigger items like the orange “pumpkins”, scattered through the board. Then place the bowls in spots that are farther away from the pumpkins.
Now you will be left with the space in between these big components to fill in. Place all the other components in and decorate any empty space with more candy eyes, Halloween stickers or cupcake toppers (that is what I used), to make the board look full. Just make sure that the non-food items look inedible and distinct from the food, so that the kids don’t accidentally eat them.