Happy Halloween Goodies at Stein's

I've been looking forward to sharing my annual photos of Stein's! I took these pics a couple days ago when it was bright and sunny out. It was also pretty darn cold. A brisk, chilly wind was whipping my hair around in the same way it was whipping this scarecrow's hair around.

Steins had a lot of cute scarecrows out.

They also had a massive selection of these clay jack-o-lanterns.

As you can see, some of them were pretty large! I think they would all look great outdoors, lit with a big candle.

I was calling these the peanut head pumpkins.

And I thought these looked like they had little hats on them. Sort of stem hats.

I was amused by these because it looks like the bottom pumpkin is kind of miffed holding the others up.

I guess you burn a fire in the lower part of this one?

This is probably my favorite:

And one little clay ghost:

Stein's had a pretty good array of gourds. I think I've seen more different gourds in stores this year than usual.

I was so excited to see this one, because I had seen it on a gourd identification web site recently. When I saw it on the web site, I thought it was so cool and unusual. So it was neat to see this in person. This is fittingly named "Peanut Pumpkin".

Seriously, doesn't this pumpkin look like it has a bunch of peanuts glued to it?

These gourds always remind me of swans. I think I'd have to paint an eye on one of these if I bought one.

Just after typing that, I looked at this next picture and saw that this one naturally comes with an eye!

This one was listed as the "Full Moon Pumpkin". How perfect is that?

A very warty gourd:

Stein's had lots of regular pumpkins too. I don't have much to say about those, but here they are. 😆

How cute is this? I had to take my annual photo of one of these planters. I ought to paint a jack-o-lantern face on a planter, since I like this so much. It makes whatever plant is in it look like funky hair.

I love these mini pumpkins with faces. I'm guessing the faces are temporary tattoos? This is my first time seeing some with party hats.

Kitty cat pumpkins with feathery hairdos:

Most of the flowers for sale now are mums. I like the way the light and shadows came out in this pic. It looks like I messed with this because the colors are so vibrant, but I didn't.

I love those little ornamental peppers! These always seem to appear in fall, in with decorative cabbage.

These are like miniature carrots.

I'm not sure if I've seen a purple splotchy one like this before.

Believe it or not, these are ornamental peppers too! They're called "Black Pearl" which I think is a very fitting name. They're so reflective that I can see myself in them. I'm that little vertical line in the middle of each. 😁

So, onto the indoor Halloween decorations. Sometimes I like how the photos of a store display look more than what I saw with my eyes. With some cropping, I can focus in on what I liked best on a shelf. In this case, I'm not sure why these pumpkins look better in photo form. At the store I was thinking "Why are they silver?" and now I'm thinking "These look like some cool brushed metal, industrial pumpkins!"

I think those pumpkins would look neat with a robot display, assuming people make Halloween robot displays. I also think these decorations would look neat with the silver pumpkins:

I was playing around with the items on the shelf, assembling what I thought might look good together. Don't you think this sign, bat, and one of those silver pumpkins would look neat together?

This next sign made me laugh out loud. It's a take off that "Enter as strangers, leave as friends" sort of message, except it says "Enter as strangers, leave if you can". Even now, I'm smiling at that.

Glitter crow!

How cute is this truck, complete with a pumpkin on its door? If you've read my blog for a while, you might have noticed that I love any small, vintage looking truck with anything holiday-themed in the back of it. Pumpkins are of course a favorite truck passenger of mine.

I loved these next two pumpkins! I've never seen pumpkins emitting... dry ice? Fog from a fog machine? Not in person anyway. This is the kind of thing I've seen in a movie, maybe a movie with a super cool Halloween party involved.

The lights inside these pumpkins changed colors.

I found this cat genuinely creepy. I don't know why, really. Maybe because it looks like it's up to no good? Or because it looks like something out of a Pharaoh's tomb if it lost the pumpkin?

How fun are these? Fishnet socks for those who don't want to bother with the fishnet stockings! And how many socks feature a buckle? That actually makes no sense, but I guess the buckle implies a witch's boot?

I like this vintage-inspired cat that was on a jar lid. I think I would like it even better with a body. Or it could look cool as a much larger cat head just sitting on a shelf.

I love this little vintage looking owl too! Like the cat above, I would have liked it even better if it wasn't attached to anything. That's probably why I took a photo of just the owl and not the bowl it was attached to.

I always have to take a pic of a skeleton pirate. This one has a massive earring!

And lastly, here's one of the most tempting things I saw at Stein's. This is one of a series of skeletons on a string of lights. It reminds me of some little party favor at a kid's Halloween party. There's something nostalgic about it.

So there's this year's trip to Stein's! They had some pretty good stuff. As far as I know, Stein's is just a Wisconsin store. So probably most of the people reading this haven't been to one. If anyone outside of Wisconsin has a similar store, I'd be interested in hearing about it!