Menards Halloween ~ Worth checking out this year!

Hey everyone! I'm glad to be back on here. I've been wanting to blog, but had to finish backing up all the photos on my computer first. That process took several months, pretty much nonstop. My computer has been slowing down, and it seemed like possibly now or never if I wanted to get those photos backed up. I backed up my photos in a number of places, and Shutterfly was one of them. They'll give you unlimited photo storage, but you have to make a purchase every 18 months. So I created a set of coasters from some Halloween photos I took in Cedarburg years ago. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out! I'll share some photos of those at the end of this post. 

So, Menards has some pretty great Halloween stuff out this year. When you walk into the store, you're met with some new inflatables. Of course you can't see this in a still photo, but this skeleton has inflated eyes that spin in circles.

Maybe you guys have seen inflatables with these cool, led light details. The green lights in the ghost's mouth and the cat's eyes are these little dots that have a 3-D effect like they're moving inward.

I love these half skeletons! I've seen variations on these in a few stores this year. It looks like this one might have eyes that do something. 

I think Menards has really stepped it up with their large-scale Halloween figures. That inflatable witch that you're seeing the back of is 20' tall! Next to her is the Wendigo. Can you see his hooves? I think they were calling the crow skeleton figure a Plague Doctor. 

I liked that Wendigo so much that you're going to see a few photos of him.

If you lived near a wooded area, or had a number of trees in the backyard, how perfect would this be behind one? I'm getting spooked just thinking of that. 

The Wendigo's eyes light up and he makes a kind of grunting/groaning/grrrring sound.

I really don't remember what the Plague Doctor had to say. He moved his clawed hands back and forth and lit up.

Here's a close-up of the giant witch inflatable. Her crystal ball has some light movement in it.

This was a new one to me too. I'm sort of remembering someone around here having a headless horseman inflatable, but I think it doesn't have a horse.

How about the "Inflatable Skeleton Highland Cow with Fur"? I got a kick out of this. Have you ever heard of this critter as a Halloween character? Unless I'm missing a reference here... 

These inflated tentacles look amazing, if you have the house for them. You'd need enough windows of a certain size in row.

Onto the gift/decoration section. They had a few new metal signs, and this one was my favorite.

This was fun. You can rotate the planchette so it goes over a certain zodiac sign and number. Of course I had to put it on my sign and birthdate. :)

X-Ray candle holders:

This is a close-up of a wreath. I'd like to try making one of these ornament wreaths sometime. 

This guy is another talker. I think he's supposed to blend in with a tree trunk. If he was a good match for the tree, I would think he'd be pretty effective.

Sssss...

Vintage-style cans:

I'm most happy with the next photos. These are going to be from the miniature Halloween village section. The miniatures were lit up really nicely this year, so they photographed well.

The Texas Hold 'Em riverboat. I'm just now noticing the hand rising from the waves.

So here we have the skeleton witch lady with... her daisy dog? Or maybe it has a cone around its head because it's injured? Can anyone help me out here?

The "Heads Will Roll" bowling alley:

The Witchy Candy Shop:

"Scaredy-Cat" Pet Grooming:

This is either a lighthouse or a water tower. 

There was a Mickey Mouse themed pumpkin house with some cute Mickey details. See the Mickey Bat weather vane? And there's a Mickey pumpkin next to the house.

There was a Looney Tunes house too. I have a vague memory of this Franken-Tweety creeping up on Sylvester. Was there an old episode where Tweety is turned into this creature by a Mad Scientist, or am I making things up?

I saved my favorite photo for last. This is something to do with toxic waste. I'm not even sure. But I really like the way the lights turned out!

So, there's Menards for you! I think they have a better Halloween selection than usual this year. And here are those Shutterfly coasters:

They have cork backs and are super sturdy.

I recommend their photo coasters! This was my first time ordering anything from Shutterfly, so I'm off to a good start. Do any of you use Shutterfly? If so, do you have any products to recommend? 

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.