Dollar Tree Halloween 2023

Dollar Tree had some new Halloween stuff in stock on my last couple visits, which was a fun surprise. I'm used to seeing the old standbys each year, like those foam pumpkins and plastic skulls, but they shook things up! 

These motion-activated witches actually gave me a scare because I didn't know they were there! So I was looking around trying to see where the cackling kept coming from. (They were on a shelf at my knee-level.)

Dollar Tree really came through with the Halloween signs this year! These are just a few of my favorites.

This is all one piece. It was either made from wood or something similar. 

Here are those Hamsa Hands I'd mentioned in that earlier Jo-Ann's post. These were much smaller than the ones at Jo-Ann's, though.

Dollar Tree had a pretty great Day of the Dead selection! That skeleton lady at the bottom right had a skirt you could fold out. You know, like those old fold around tissue paper decorations.

These felt sugar skulls are part of a garland.

These are some of those small decorative "book" boxes. 

Quite the fancy skull serving tray!

These bottles are more Autumnal than Halloween themed, but I had to include them because they're so pretty!

Every year their cut-outs get more intricate. This is really the best deal you're going to get on laser-cut signs.

These coffin decorations stand up vertically. 

I guess they would be "organic".

This crystal ball is new this year. It's made from plastic, although you can't really tell to look at it. I think the bottoms can screw off on these, and if so it could look cool to put some little fairy/twinkle lights inside.

Looks like a ghost is trapped in a bubble here. Or coming through with a message through the crystal ball. 👻

Pretty cool new stuff, hey? Is this more or less the selection at your local Dollar Tree? I know how they're all different. Actually, the pics in this blog post were taken at two different Dollar Trees, and each store had a different selection.

Halloween at JoAnn's ~ Part 2

I returned to JoAnn's to see what had been added to those empty shelves I saw last time. There were a few new goodies. For the most part, the new items matched that classic Halloween theme you saw in the last post.

Here are more of those cutie jack-o-lanterns you saw in the last post. I think that "BOO" wood square decoration is sort of a take on wood lettered blocks for kids. I feel inspired to craft something like that. A "BOO" painted on totally square blocks with sort of a vintage look would be cool. 

This funky glam beetle and spider were fairly large. If someone was decorating a large-scale Halloween tree, these could be a fun addition.

This different type of spider looks like a fun way to display treats.

I love these twisted spooky trees. Of course one could look cool alone, but they're pretty striking as a forest. Imagine how fun it would be to decorate these as a group. Maybe some tiny fake leaves could go under them.

Of course there were some skeleton decorations. This guy was cool because his eyes changed colors off and on.

I know you see some form of skeletons doing yoga on my blog each year, but these are metallic. 😉 They're really gritting their boney teeth in holding those poses, which is understandable for that one on the left. 

And then there are these two. He's just bathing in his top hat, swigging away. I'm beginning to think that I'm with skeletons how some people are with garden gnomes (that I find them funny just doing anything). Those "bubbles" are actually marbles. 

There were a couple new skeleton creatures too. "New" is saying something, because every year I feel like I've seen it all with skeleton critters. Isn't this a happy skeleton rooster?

This metallic rainbow sea creature lights up. A bright blue light emanates from his brain.

There were a number of patterned Halloween fabrics out. Here are some of my favorites:

Look at those spooky cat eyes! And it goes without saying how cool those Day of the Dead patterns are. I guess the first one is kind of a Day of the Dead/Halloween mashup.

And a few classic patterns:

Like last time's JoAnn's post, I'm going to end with a few Dollar Tree finds. You're looking at a pack of eight wood fox cut-outs that you can make into a garland. Below the foxes are some wood acorns and mushrooms.

I still love the truck carrying something craze and I guess everyone else does too, because I keep seeing trucks everywhere! These could look cute on a wreath.

These velvety small pumpkins are a great deal for $1.00! (You're looking at two sprigs here.) These also come in a bright reddish orange and white. I have a white set that I'm planning to put in with some silk roses for autumn.

Can you even believe that these three signs came from a Dollar Tree? These vintage-inspired signs were above and beyond what I'd expect to see there. They're pretty sturdy too! It might be hard to see here, but they're on stakes. The heads are roughly the size of a human head.

Dollar Tree has had a pretty impressive Halloween selection this year, and it's fast moving. So if your store is anything like mine, grab what you like when you first see it! I haven't seen most of the same Halloween items on my next visit. But the good news is that they always seem to have a different Halloween item in place of them! 

A resting place for miniature villains

This year I finally got around to creating a mini cemetery! That's something I've been talking about doing for years. I think what kept me from starting was deciding on the materials to work with. I've seen some great little tombstones made from paper and wrapped around candles. That's maybe something to try in the future, but for now I decided to work with what you'd think would have been an obvious material: stones.

I found these little inspirations on a trip to the lake on my birthday. So that's a little over a month ago. Once the idea struck, I really got rolling with finding the perfect stones. Here they are, before being "inscribed".

So part one of picking a material was done. The next and very crucial part of this project was choosing the names that would go on these stones. Well, I thought it would be fun to choose some names from works of fiction. I thought about characters from my favorite old horror movies, like putting "The Wolfman" or "Dracula" on the stones, but something just wasn't clicking for me with that. Then I thought about some favorite books, but the names just seemed too unrelated for me. Then ZIP! I thought about that favorite old show of mine from back in the day: Are You Afraid of the Dark?

Well, that show provided me with instant and seemingly endless inspiration. I had more names than I did stones with that! Perfect. I thought of my favorite villains from the show and decided their names would make up my cemetery.

If you know the Brother Septimus character, you'll appreciate the eye on his stone and that piece of potpourri that very much resembles an eye in front of it. I tried to think of a symbol that was representative of these characters. Like the lips for the beautiful Ms. Valenti, who was very into her cosmetics.

Or the snake that is slithering across Jake "The Snake" Desmond's stone. I went really mossy and funky with Dr. Vink's stone, because he seemed like he could have moss growing on him! And I ripped some fuzzy plant stuff apart to put in front of his grave. Because I thought he'd have an overgrown sort of resting place.

For those of you who haven't watched Are You Afraid of the Dark? many of the episodes are online. So if you're curious, you could google some of these names and either see the characters or watch the episodes. Or you could check out this page where someone has organized all the Are You Afraid of the Dark? villains in alphabetical order:

Villains Wiki: Are You Afraid of the Dark Villains

If you click on a name, you can read about the character. Just a note, there are spoilers about the episodes here.

OK, so I had some stones and I had some names. Next I had to figure out a way to hold my little cemetery in place. I lucked out in finding the last of these signs at Dollar Tree.

Like with my Ofrenda project, this sweet family sign can be flipped to become the perfect size box to hold a cemetery! As you'll see in a bit, I painted the sides of it a dark green.

This floral foam from Dollar Tree was perfect for holding the stones in place.

I just squished them in there and they stayed put.

Although the foam was green, I wanted some plant-like material over the top of it. I ended up purchasing the last bag of this green potpourri from Dollar Tree. It was dyed a greenish color in parts, looked like spooky plants, and was labeled as  having a "fall leaves" scent.

Well, let me tell you, it smelled like... I don't even know. Overbearing cologne combined with Pine Sol? The funk was released as soon as I opened the bag. I should have smelled it in the store. At least I learned from this that dry potpourri can survive being washed. I washed it many times with vinegar and baking soda and watched that green dye wash away a good bit. After a couple days of it airing out on the porch, I didn't smell a thing.

Now that it's scentless, I like it a lot. There were all kinds of awesome shapes in the mix. My favorites:

I thought this one would look good holding a fake eye:

I happened to have some spare eyes that had fallen out of the center of some flowers, so in they went with the rest of the potpourri. Looks like a crazy moss monster, doesn't it?

Turns out they glow in the dark too!

So, back to the cemetery, I was then good to go! Here it is, pieced together.

From the top:

I took some photos of it at night, from inside a closet. I was trying to get that spooky lighting going with the candle.

I imagined this candle as a cemetery gate.

Try and imagine walking through this cemetery at night (of course being in scale to it yourself). Maybe you're carrying a lantern to cast this little bit of light over the stones. Crunch, crunch go the leaves underfoot.

I  like the way that snake shows up in the candlelight.

Remember those miniature pumpkins I got in the After Halloween Haul? Well, here's why I wanted them so much!

Aren't they just the perfect size? I already had a miniature truck full of pumpkins, so I was playing around with my miniature truck and gnomes. Maybe they're dropping off some little pumpkins at the cemetery? Or maybe they planted those pumpkins in there?

I've had this gnome standing in the cemetery because he's holding a shovel. I'd darkened the eyes on my gnomes and this one's eyes went goofy. I thought that expression made sense for a gnome working in a cemetery like this one.

Even though I made this cemetery and the characters are fictional, I actually spooked myself with the finished product. These names mean something to me and the thought of these characters together in a cemetery, even miniature, dead, and not real is pretty eerie to me.