Friday, August 25, 2017

Michaels and Marshalls are ready for Halloween!



I was thrilled to see how well stocked our local Michaels store was with Halloween goodies! I looked down the aisles and had that excited feeling I'm sure you all have when you see shelves fully stocked with Halloween goodies. Adrenaline rush!


I inspected the aisles and took some photos of my favorite items. Michaels had lots of skull/skeleton stuff and what I'd call a Victorian Gothic theme. There were also a few funny things, like this:


That tree has this expression like "What the heck happened to me?" It looks like he was sheet webbed. They went really heavy on the cotton/debris.

I bet you've all seen these pictures before. The ones that start off normally enough (although I think these two look pretty creepy to begin with).


Then as you walk past, the picture begins to change...


Boo!


This set of keys was surprisingly heavy. I guess I expected them to be made of foam or something. They'd work with a dungeon type theme.


I saw a few pumpkins I liked. This one had that kind of mercury glass thing going on. I just noticed a bunch of little me's reflected in it. Haha! It's like little, distorted funhouse mirrors.


What do you think of this as a pumpkin color? It's definitely nontraditional!


There were some ceramic pieces, ready to paint.


I was just reminded of something similar I saw on Tumblr recently. So that's where this is from - this one isn't my picture. Not sure who took this, actually. If someone reading this is the photographer, let me know and I'll give you credit!


Haha! Actually, there are a lot of cool Halloween wedding ideas out there. But I somehow doubt Michaels was suggesting people customize their weddings with these skulls.

OK, back to my photos. My favorite ceramic item on the shelf was this skull. I'm pretty sure it's the same as the ones someone else photographed above.


I'm not really sure what these are. Spiders suspended in a colorful gel? Cute little coffin boxes anyway.


Have any of you tried these candy corn lights? I've seen these the past few years in stores and wondered what they look like lit up. They have the potential to look pretty cool I think!


I love these cut wood decorations. I have a little haunted house like this that I painted last year.


My favorite cut out on the shelf was this coffin. It's so intricate. I assume these light up in many colors, the way my little haunted house does.


Lots of leaf garlands. I was looking at these, thinking how someone could be hiding behind the display. I was probably thinking that because of those people you see in those moss/leaf suits. Those Ghillie suits. Years back, some kid a town over got in trouble for sitting near people's porches at night, wearing a Ghillie suit. Can you imagine?


Check out that Poison bottle. Good to know it's organic and unfiltered. 😜


And those Bat Wings are "100% Pure" No additives in the Bat Wings.

I liked this spider ribbon. I assume it looks kind of transparent when you unwind it. The gold skulls are cool too.

Michaels had some Halloween candy out by the cash register. Cute little emoji Dracula suckers. 


Some really cool Sugar Skull tins, which I assume have little skull shaped candies inside. I might be on the lookout for these during my After Halloween Haul.


I was amused by how many displays had been messed with in this Michaels! Like this skeleton who I'm pretty sure wasn't hoola-hooping to begin with. I saw a little killer whale toy posed to eat a house in a Christmas village display too. There were a handful of funny things that made me think a kid had been left to entertain themselves. 😁


This is a nice lead in to the skull/skeleton section of this blog post. As you'll see, they had a nice selection!


How cute is this little guy? He went with one of the Halloween towns.


He'd probably just been to the "Reaper Motorcycle Company" here:


Another cool miniature was this hearse led by a skeleton horse.


A different take on the skeleton horse with a sugar skeleton driver.


I couldn't help making my own display! He looked good by the cemetery gates.


Haha!


Glamorous.


These dapper guys went with the Victorian type Halloween decorations.


More of that mercury glass look. This had more of a bright red glow than you can see here. It reminds me of some old medicine bottles.



Yoga skeletons. I like any figurine doing yoga.


This one has some attitude!

"Ladies..."

They had a few things with a velvety covering, like this mirror. This one reminded me of a cameo, probably because I have an actual necklace that has a skeleton lady cameo with a fancy frame.


A pretty cool skeleton hand mirror. This might be another Haul purchase. Writing this blog post is feeling like a way for me to bookmark some favorite items in my mind. You can see some little witches dancing in the reflection.


Conga line rats!


On their own, I'm not sure what's going on. Is a lone skeleton rat begging for something? What would a skeleton rat have to beg for? And those books would in scale have to be pretty tiny! I know I'm giving this some extra thought, but still! I need a little explanation here.


The perfect transition from skeletons to black cats...


Look at this cute, little goofball.


This one has a cat clock thing going on!


Here's a scurvy one!


He's fierce.


There were also some cat costumes for sale. Can you imagine a cat wearing this?


And not to be outdone...


My favorite cat of the day was at the Marshalls store next to the Michaels.


How cute is this!?


Marshalls had their own version of the crackled glass skull. I love the color!


And how cute is this? A "Spirits" and "Cheese" board! If your cheese cubes start moving around on this, you're in trouble. 😉


So, have you guys been seeing any cool Halloween stuff for sale? I didn't see any Halloween items out at Target the last time I was there, which was maybe a week ago. I'll keep my eyes on everyone's blogs, because I see some of you have been posting your Halloween finds.

P.S. ~ I was listening to this Halloween music mix while putting this blog post together. Thought you might enjoy it too!

13 Vintage Halloween Hop Songs from the 1950's, & 60's:


A link to the playlist: https://youtu.be/SisxwnlEiq0


12 comments:

  1. Awesome post, dear Lady Justine... (Always look forward to your Holiday posts) !!!
    and wonderful images !!!!
    a great weekend to you and yours.

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    1. Dr. Theda ~ Thank you! :) Yeah, it's getting to be that time of year again. I can sense fall coming! And thanks for the compliment on my photos. A happy weekend to you too!

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  2. These were all fun to look at, loved the skeleton in a lotus position!

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    1. Lorelei ~ Thank you! Glad you enjoyed the pics. I think everybody loves that skeleton in the lotus position! I was on someone else's blog last night and saw a pic of that same yoga skeleton. That might just have to be an after Halloween purchase for me when I go hauling...

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  3. Great post Justine, I love all this Halloween stuff! 🙂👻

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    1. Raymond ~ Thank you! :) Nice little ghost emoji there. Cooler than the ghost emoji I've been offered on Twitter. The ghost on Twitter looks basically like two floating eyes!

      Yeah, I loved looking at all this Halloween stuff too. I can feel Halloween approaching...

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  4. Great finds! I love that spirit cheese board. I had a friend buy one and carve a planchette out of cheese before she used it - super cute! :)

    You may know, but those teal pumpkins are actually sold for the Teal Pumpkin Project. It's a movement to offer non-food treats to kids with food allergies while they're trick-or-treating. You use the teal pumpkin to denote your house gives out non-food items. :) Pretty cool stuff!

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    1. Miranda ~ Thank you! Oh, what a neat idea to make a planchette out of cheese. Clever friend you have there!

      I actually didn't know about the Teal Pumpkin Project. That's a very nice idea. Thanks for cluing me in. After reading about that on the project's web site, I now see that I have the official seal of it in that picture. I'd been seeing a lot of teal pumpkins on Pinterest lately, and thought it was just a new trend!

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  5. I was envying Miranda's Spirit Halloween post earlier (Spooky Little Halloween). You guys are so lucky to be seeing stuff in now. It will be a while yet before I see anything on this side of the Atlantic.

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    1. Alison ~ Oh, I haven't checked out her Spirit Halloween post! I'll have to look for that and also look for some Spirit stores around here. I didn't expect to see any open yet. When do you usually see Halloween stuff on the shelves? It does seem to arrive earlier and earlier here, but I'm not complaining! :)

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  6. We might see a few things in late September, but its not a holiday that has really caught on here in England. Last year I got TOTs for the first in fifteen years! I was thrilled. I hope we have some this year too.

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    1. Alison ~ That's so cool that you had some trick-or-treaters last year! Hopefully you'll get some more this year. What were they dressed as?

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