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? 

Michael's Candy Colored Halloween

I bet a lot of you have been to Michael's over the past few months. Yesterday was my first time there this season, so I have no idea what they had for Halloween before this! Well, maybe I had a slight clue because of the Michael's commercials on TV. Maybe you saw the one with those creepy twins. One twin bought all white decorations and the other bought all black decorations. I saw a bit of the ghostly white collection, but I'll get to that later.

I'll start with what I'll call the pink collection. I have always loved pink and black together. This skeleton was fuzzy to the touch.

Bubblegum pink is so cute for Halloween. I've seen some pastel Halloween stuff this year, but I prefer the bright pink. My grade school self would have been going wild for this collection. Actually, my grade school self would have been thrilled to see this much Halloween stuff in stores, period.

"Yikes"

How great is this retro font?

This feels retro too. It's probably a take on "Feelin' Groovy", especially with those flowers. 🌸

I think I can call these ombre, even though they're not the same color fading from light to dark. I have that rat, by the way, just in plain rat bone color. This rat is nearly the size of the cat next to him, so I guess he has nothing to worry about!

Even a buzzard looks cheerful in these colors.

I actually thought this was for Christmas, until I saw the bat on top. There are so many non-traditional colors for holidays now that it's hard to tell. And now there are trees for several holidays too.

A better look at the bat:

There was a matching wreath:

Michael's still had a number of bright Halloween wreaths left. See the little Beetlejuice spirals in this one?

Giant pompoms:

These were fuzzy decorative shapes with beaded ropes attached. It's hard to explain, unless you've seen them. You probably hang them off something. I just looked on the Michael's web site, and they're calling these "wall decor". So I guess what you hang them off of is the wall. I think they'd look good as part of a wreath.

OK, so back to what I was talking about before - The ghostly white collection. On first glance, this looks like Shabby Chic. If a person had a light Shabby Chic look going already, this could be a subtle Halloween addition to it. 

See what I mean? It looks like Shabby Chic until you get up close. I didn't catch what was going on in that cathedral window at first. 

It says "Welcome to our Haunted Manor" on that sign.

Michael's had a few nontraditional critters, like this scorpion. There were actually a few different scorpion decorations. They had Venus Fly Traps and just funky looking carnivorous plants. I wasn't fond of most of them because they looked too real. But cake anything in silver glitter and I will suddenly find it cool.

There was a little bit of traditional Halloween left. There were tons of spools of ribbon. Looking at this pic, I'm wanting to go back for all three of these. But what would I do with them? All I can ever think of for decorative ribbon is garlands and wreaths. And I don't need more garlands or wreaths! 

These tall signs seem to be everywhere this year, but I thought that one in the middle was a little different. 

This spooky cat eye is part of the magnifying glass.

I always seem to end my Halloween shopping posts with a Day of the Dead picture or two. My thinking is that the holiday comes just after Halloween so that's where the pics go! Isn't this a fun pillow? I have a feeling that Michael's had a lot of great Day of the Dead items but I missed them. 

So, did you guys buy any items from these collections? I may go back after Halloween and see what is left, although I suspect not much will be. I can always make an excuse to get more Halloween picks, because those can go anywhere. Some of those fuzzy beaded rope things could be worked in here and there and I love the colors. If I have an After Halloween Haul, you know I'll post it here!