A Great Variety of Gourds at Stein's!

I've been saving some photos from this year's trip to Stein's for Halloween week. You guys are probably pretty familiar with the store from previous blog posts. For those who aren't, Stein's is a garden store with some gift items. 

I have a lot of different pumpkin varieties to share from this trip. I love looking at all the different kinds of gourds, especially on a bright sunny day. A lucky trip to Stein's is one where the sky is bright blue, because that makes for a nice contrast with the pumpkins. 

Fall is Fantastic! 🦋

I have a soft spot in my heart for miniature pumpkins and I love photographing big groups of them.

Gourds come in so many different shapes and color patterns. There's a seemingly endless number of styles. 

A swan gourd!

These "Orange Sparkler" Pumpkins were some of my favorites. This photo became the wallpaper on my computer for the first part of October. 

Pie Pumpkins:

"Royalty" Pumpkins:

"Tiger Stripe" Pumpkins:

"Casper" Pumpkins:

"Snowbaby" Pumpkins:

"Blanco" Pumpkins, which I think were a little larger than the "Snowbabies"

The "Blue Doll" Pumpkin:

I always like to see the fall floral that's out with the pumpkins. Here are a few of my favorite flowers from that day.

These were labeled as "Spintop Yellow Touch Blanketflower".

I'm not sure why, but I only see these vibrant little decorative peppers in the fall. These peppers must be mature in the summer too. 

These decorative cabbages also only turn up with the fall floral. Again, I don't know why! The peppers and cabbages both look good with the mums, though. 

As expected, Stein's had some ceramic pumpkin and ghost decorations. These are pretty large scale. I've seen some similar ones in front of the grocery store lately. I imagine these would look pretty cool lit up.

The Stein's fence that is always in front of the parking lot looks perfect with these.

I always wondered what was going on with this figure. Are you supposed to burn something in the lower pumpkin?

I like seeing this friendly ghost each year. He reminds me of Casper.

Now to the gift items inside the store. There weren't a ton, but then I did take these pics in September. One could argue that I'd have to if I wanted to see any Halloween items! 

Kind of a funny tall hat on this one.

I got a kick out of this guy. He's ready for winter! Or actually right now. I've been wearing a winter hat this past week. I just noticed that photobombing little whatever above his head.

Boo! Note the Christmas stuff that was already out in September. There were Christmas trees out and everything!

Here's a sentiment I think we can all agree with:

Another cute towel:

A few signs:

How cool is this pillow? Pretty fancy with the sequins.

I hope you guys enjoyed the 2021 tour of Stein's! I thought they had a pretty nice array of gourds this year. Stein's is a Wisconsin store, but you can check out the Halloween part of their web site here: 

Steins home and outdoor Halloween decor. 

Unusual Christmas Gifts at Steins

This is going to be a quick post about some unusual finds at Steins. You might remember this store from my trips to it around Halloween. This is the place with lots of pumpkins. I was surprised and interested in enough Christmas items that I thought I'd take some pics and share them with you guys. Maybe you've seen some of these before?

We're starting with the "Whoo-ville Trees" which look like they're made of Grinch! Don't they look more Grinch than tree? The Revenge of the Whos I guess.

 It's weird that it's spelled Whooville instead of Whoville. Maybe it's a copyright thing.

There was a beautiful poinsettia display with all sorts of different colored flowers.

That isn't too unusual in itself, but check out these two:

An orange poinsettia which reminds me of autumn leaves:

And a blue one, which is surprisingly cool:

And check out these air plants! These aren't really Christmas themed, but I think they were part of the Christmas display because they'd make good little gifts.

This one has some spunk.

Another air plant was displayed in this... ghost?

The store has a page up about air plants:

https://www.shopsteins.com/grow/air-plants

Who knew that these plants "get nutrients from dust"?

Back to the more Christmassy stuff - sort of. This giant grasshopper is intended as an ornament anyway.

I wouldn't mind hanging this on a tree if it was the size of an actual grasshopper. An insect/nature tree could be pretty cool, actually. But this guy was at least 4" long!

Another unusual ornament I saw was this jellyfish. This is another big one. It could be cool on one of those beach-themed trees. I've been seeing a lot of beach or ocean type ornaments this year.

A Charlie Brown Christmas tree:

This is one of my favorite photos from the day. I love lights that are shaped like this. They look almost like candy or cake toppings. This might need to become my computer's wallpaper soon.

Steins had some neat, unique items for sale, hey? I have to share a yard display from the ride home. How cool are these Christmas dinosaurs and dragon? And if you look at the right side of the photo, you'll see a snowman robbery in progress! He's armed with a hairdryer! You don't get much more threatening than that.

Hope you're all having fun, getting ready for Christmas. Hopefully, I'll have the time to blog about some Christmas activities. I don't know where December has gone!