Halloween at Menards ~ 2021

After my last blog trip to Lowe's, we're continuing on with the Halloween hardware store theme. This time we're headed to Menards. I was pretty impressed with their selection, especially after combing through my photos. Sometimes I don't realize how many cool things I've seen until revisiting pics of them. 

There were a number of decorative candle containers at Menards.

I'd expect to see something like this tin more at Michael's, although Menards did have some retro/rustic decorations this year.

Isn't this fun and goofy? I'm just now noticing the octopus (?) in the cat's palm.

This "Coffin Sound Box" was totally new to me. It's sort of a little remote that plays different classic Halloween sound effects. The red circle is the speaker.

Looking closer here you can see that each tiny pic corresponds to a sound effect.

Wouldn't this gold skull be a perfect fit with a pirate-themed haunt?

And speaking of shiny skulls, here are some mercury glass skull lights. I always wonder what mercury glass (or mercury plastic) lights look like lit up. Maybe not so great. They might look like dark splotches in front of light. But I'm a big fan of unlit mercury glass anyway.

Try not to hear this in Mike Myers' voice.

Now, this werewolf may not look too scary here, but he gave me a start. He was very tall and motion activated. I bet that big funky thing under his foot picked up the motion.

When the "Lanky Werewolf" senses your movement, his eyes glow, he roars, and he lurches about while reaching his paw at you.

He had kind of a rubbery head. I have to laugh looking at this pic as I remember how his eye was almost bent in on his skull. 

Menards had a number of cute Halloween village pieces and I think a lot of these were actually new. I had fun getting up close and photographing the details and I am super happy with how the lights showed up in these photos. 

Seriously, I don't know what Menards magic was going on with how these were set up, because I normally am not this happy with store-lit photos.

How adorable is this? I'm reminded of the life-size cars I've seen at car shows with prop skeletons inside.

And this one had kind of a snow globe thing going on with the glitter.

A greenhouse:

I love these guys. I'm sure they're telling ghost stories around the campfire.

She's another favorite. I guess we're to think Death Metal is dead, or that she's somehow channeling it? Anyway, I like this little figure. There's a lot of movement and character going on for such a tiny part of a Halloween village.

"Candied Numbskulls" :) Looks like there's a nice list of flavors there.

See the owl?

These pet dragons are cute. They remind me of the ones you see on people's shoulders as magical costume accessories. 

And onto another dragon... If you look near this one's neck, you'll see some bright lights that move around inside the inflatable. I'm reminded of the Maleficent dragon.

A closer look...

How about this little cutie?

I share this every year, but that's OK. :) I'm not sure if he had a little trick-or-treat bucket last year, though. 

May The Force Be With Boo!

I'll leave you guys with this hideous creature.

Do you ever take a picture of something without realizing what it really looks like? Then you look at the picture you took and get a surprise. Well, this is one of those times. Yikes. I looked at the screen on my camera after zooming in on this and was kind of like "Eww".

Haha. I have no idea what this does, but it probably flaps its wings and shrieks. 

I may have one more set of hardware store pics to share, depending on how many I took at Home Depot. I hadn't thought I'd taken all that many at Menards and yet here we are! I'd be interested to know if this is pretty much the Menards selection you guys have been seeing. 

Halloween at Home Depot

It would appear that yet another blogworthy Halloween store section has emerged! Home Depot really impressed me with their selection. I saw stuff there the other day that I haven't seen in other stores.

This fish made a glub-glub-glub sound when set off, like you're hearing bubbles. I think a chomp-chomp-chomp sound could work too! The full piranha:

It's quite the feat for a store to show me a new skeleton critter at this point. I just noticed his little skeletal fin. I'm pretty sure that "skeletal webbing" is not anatomically correct, but it's cute.

Now here's an inflatable I bet you haven't seen yet! I sure hadn't. Remember the Sandworms in Beetlejuice?

How about that photobombing ghost? :)

Looking at that Sandworm, I'm thinking how cool it would be to do a Beetlejuice themed yard display. How about if someone dressed up as Beetlejuice to hand out treats and had this in his yard? That would be pretty cool.

A random pumpkin dude, who I think was one of those hanging ghoulie type decorations:

For those of you who are into skeleton pirates and ghost ships, which I would think would be everyone, you're going to love this:

I just noticed that Figurehead:

And check out the crew!

It's like they took some props from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.

If any of you are looking for some large scale outdoor Halloween decorations, it's looking like Home Depot is the place to go! I was impressed with the amount of life-sized (or I would assume so) creatures. This werewolf was incredibly cool. This was the one I thought would be scariest out of the store. Imagine if someone set this up in the woods and you happened to walk past it at night.

This guy was tall. I would guess 7 ft. He was looming over me. Several of these characters or displays were towering above me, so I can only imagine how much they would spook little trick-or-treaters.

Oh, and when you set it off, its mouth opens as it growls and it lights up like this:

This guy was quite the character. Kind of a mischievous sorcerer type.

It was hard to catch the complete spirit of some of these figures because of the intense store lighting. I'm sure this skeleton knight would look a lot scarier in the dark! He said something about a battle, as I'm remembering it. I mean, these creatures say vaguely threatening things. I was standing in front of it, hoping the sword wouldn't swing (it doesn't).

This was probably my favorite of the large, moving, light up figures. I have always liked the Headless Horseman story, so that may have been part of why I liked this so much. But it really was very cool.

Look at that rotting corpse of a horse! I was so impressed with the way its head moved and its legs moved up and down in a slow gallop. You can see that sort of fabric part around the neck. That's where the head had some flexibility.

Many of these figures had that little button in front of them that you tap with your foot to get them moving and making noise. So in a way, their Halloween section was a lot like Halloween Express.

How cool is the skeleton-driven hearse!? I wish I could have gotten a closer view of it, but it was way up over my head on a shelf. Can you see his red, glowing eyes?

Home Depot had a few classic skeleton floral arrangements out. This one is inspiring me to do something floral-wise. I do have enough little skulls around, as well as fake roses. Hmm...

The matching wreath:

I'll end with a pic of some of the pie pumpkins that were outside the store. I liked the way these looked with the greens behind them. That looks like ornamental chard.

So have you guys been to Home Depot yet? I suggest going and just having a good time in the Halloween section! Make the rounds and set off some of those figures. Watch them light up and listen to what they have to say. I think you'll have a fun time! 🎃