A Bright and Beautiful Day at Stein's

It's time for this year's Stein's post! What a beautiful day to take photos. The sky was a bright blue and cloudless. That blue always looks good with the orange pumpkins and decorations.  After this many years taking photos there, I know the weather conditions that look best with the displays!

Many of the ceramic pumpkins I've shared in the past were there, but there were some slight variations. 

The fence they always have up looks fitting with the Halloween decorations. 

I think this jack-o-lantern was new. He's on a stand, and my guess is that's for fire hazard reasons. Maybe you could have live flames in this more safely with it off the ground.

You might remember these ceramic jack-o-lantern pots too.

It's been so hot here that I felt lucky to photograph the pumpkins before they rotted away. They were getting near rotty as it was. I took these pics at the end of September, by the way. So it's hard to say how much longer some of these gourds lasted. It would be no problem as far as the temps being too hot right now! 

Pie pumpkins: 

Check out those stems! 

This pic was my computer wallpaper for awhile.  

Little ghost pumpkin. I think the slightly larger, fully round ones are Caspers.

There were many pretty mums as expected, but I feel like there were more colors out this year.

And some were in these pots you might remember. Every year I say I want to DIY these, but I'm not sure where I'd find the basic pots.

These flowers were new to me. They are Osteospermum. I've seen photos of Osteospermum online, but they were all light purple. This is the first time I'd seen these flowers in person and the first time I'd seen them in yellow in any way. They're called "Blue Eyed Beauty".  The very center is blue. I know at first it looks like they should be called Purple Eyed Beauty. 

They had beautiful straw flowers out! This one was my wallpaper before the yellow and orange pumpkins.

It's always fun to see the autumn floral arrangements with the decorative cabbage and peppers. These peppers look like crazy carrots or fingers to me. 

Aren't seasonal window displays fun? 

They added some new decorations this year, like this scarecrow.

So, venturing in the store here... Look who was there greeting us at the entrance! I think they named him Willy the Werewolf. 

His eyes came alive, I think in some motion sensor way. They look like maybe LED?

This is a ghost. It may be hard to tell because it has a lot of angles. It changed colors and I think it would be really pretty in the dark. 

The flasher...

Boo!

How cute are these? I like candy corn decorations so much more than the actual candy.

This towel was maybe my favorite item in the store. It reminds me of a design off a vintage candy bag. You know those little paper bags for Halloween treats?

And how great is this! Stein's had a Merry Christmas one of these out last year. Just picture it in neon red and green. These signs are pretty large and I imagine they'd look great on the side of a house or building. 

So there we have it! Another fun trip to Stein's for Halloween. My next blog post will be about all the Halloween decorations I've seen around town. I've been impressed with how DIY they've been. It's entertaining for me to see all that creativity. And it's fun to be surprised with unpredictable displays. 🦇

Michaels Halloween and a tiny bit of Marshalls

Get ready for some cool Halloween stuff from the Michaels shelves! Starting with this witchy sign:

I like that bit of jack-o-lantern ribbon on there. Also there was this retro moon sign with some squiggly type decorations. "A night of magic, mischief, & mayhem under the moon". Sounds like something off an antique postcard or invitation, doesn't it?

Jack-o'-lantern jingle bells and some glittery branch picks:

Michaels had rows of little decorations out, things like picks and... well it mostly looks like they had picks. 😆 But there were a lot of picks! And a few wreaths.

So this wreath had a bit of everything: a witch hat, a skeleton hand, a Voodoo doll, and a fancy skull. Oh, and I almost missed that scorpion. Do you see it? That critter is pretty well camouflaged.

Kind of a succulent, rose-type girly skull.

These probably look really neat lit up. I would think a candle's flame would dance off that metal in a lively way.

And they had just walls of floral!

I like these reaching plants. At least to me they look like reaching fingers.

The red truck trend is still going strong! And I am happy if it goes strong forever.

There were lots of those prickly type natural fiber critters. You know what I mean. They had some cute ones.

And this just cracks me up for some reason. I am by no means into squirrels, but this one with a nut steering wheel. It's just cute. And it reminds me of a toy I had as a kid. Do any of you remember that McDonald's toy from the 80s where the Fraggles are driving a car made of veggies? I know that sounds so random.

Wait a minute, is that a panda behind the squirrel? Because that would make no sense.

I'm still trying to decide if I'm into this corn textured pumpkin. It's definitely new to me. I think I like it.

I know I like these!

And these too. How cool would it be to set up a shelf of these kind of retro looking autumn food containers? These two remind me of the antique containers I used to see in the antique stores. It's funny how everyday household items can take on a retro coolness if kept around for five or more decades.

I thought this was clever too ~ A pumpkin pie recipe right there on the pumpkin.

Gourds, gourds, gourds! Michaels had such a strong gourd selection, and a realistic one to boot.

These look like the real deal, right?

And I love a good Cinderella pumpkin.

Kind of a candy corn thing going on:

A very realistic looking Jarrahdale pumpkin:

Michaels had a good selection of ceramic pieces. My favorite on this display is that jack-o'-lantern on the upper left.

This would be a fun one to paint!

This kitty cat reminds me of a pumpkin I decorated with black duct tape years back.

OK, at this point I'm revisiting my photos and thinking about how much I would enjoy painting some of the following wood cut-outs. I could have a blast coloring in all the bright details on this one.

And this! I think this box lights up.

I love that Dracula.

Michaels had a very fun Halloween "Miniature Party Block" out. I felt like I was going on a miniature bar hop. I'm just now noticing some of the details on these structures. We'll start out with my favorite one: "The Ghoulish Gourd Pub & Grill".

Check out this pumpkin slurping away.

I like that giant spider over the doorway of the "Spider Cider House".

OK, these two are actually pretty creepy up close.

Check out that little creeper behind the "Pay Here" sign. I'm just noticing all kinds of fun details here, like those peering eyes in the top window or the design of that "Jack's Pumpkin Farm" Sign with the pumpkin critter peeking over the top.

I have a feeling this guy lights up, because I see a little wire. He reminds me of that Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil girl.

And how about this little guy? How cute is he?

Next door to this Michaels is a Marshalls store. The next few photos are from there. They didn't have a whole lot of Halloween out at that time.

Isn't this retro radio fun? I recognize the skeleton art from a vintage postcard I have a reproduction of. I think the metal bats and pumpkin are a nice touch too. I saw a similar radio at a T.J. Maxx today and I'll be sharing that in an upcoming blog post.

I thought this skeleton plate had a fun chalkboard look to it.

I like these retro kind of light-up trees for Christmas and that's usually about it. But I did like this candy corn one. Those colors with the triangle shape made this work for me.

The "I Scream Parlour"

I've been seeing a lot of Halloween items with this kind of rainbow metallic finish this year. You'll see some more them in an upcoming Jo-Ann's post.

See the little skeleton holding up that wine glass?

And lastly, some sweet Peanuts glasses. I've been seeing a lot of Peanuts Halloween products on the shelves this year.

Well, that's it for Michaels and Marshalls for now. I still have a bunch of photos to go through from Jo-Ann's. They went in a way different direction from Michaels. I think you guys are going to dig the Jo-Ann's stuff in a way where you might even want it out year-round.

And there will be some T.J. Maxx photos coming too. I actually went to the same T.J. Maxx store twice today and was surprised to see totally different Halloween stuff on the shelves hours later. So I guess they sold and stocked pretty quickly.