New Recruits....a bit skinny, but dirt cheap!

Lucked up and got these two at CVS. They were advertised at 50% off but rang up 75% off! My dream of a skeltal army is getting closer!

These two boneheads are snuggled up with the old guard in the attic, waiting for next year.

Anybody else lucking up on deals?

Monday's Monstrous Merchandise

 So I had been planning the first road trip of the season looking for Halloween goodies for over a week, I had a map planned out of all the stores we were going to and all the items I was looking for in particular. I even had a wallet full of coupons for each stop.
 It was an absolutely beautiful day. More reminiscent of Autumn than Summer. I took with me the creepiest people in my life (M and my wicKED mother) and we headed out! Overall the trip was a TON of fun but it was a bit disappointing. I am not sure if it is just in my area of the world, or if it is a horrible condition faced by many, but glitter was EVERYWHERE! Few and far between was the Halloween item that did not at least have an outline of the foul glimmering Twilight slime on it. And those items that did not come with glitter were still covered with the crap due to proximity of the items near them that did! I was trying to carefully document all the items for sale at first, but soon just gave up due to the Glitteropalypse that had befallen my beloved holiday. Let's not lament...but continue with the journey as it took place!

THE JOURNEY!

MICHAEL'S

Our first stop was Michael's. I always liked Michael's for Halloween. They have crazy sales, even crazier coupons, and to top it all off, they give teachers an additional 15% off the entire purchase! Thanks M for all those hard years of study so I can get discounts at Halloween! They had some great items, both for crafting and completed, but they had jumped on the glitter bandwagon. Here are some of the shots of one of my favorite stores offering:

Large white Forever Pumpkins. 40% off with an addition 40% off coupon...PLUS M's 15% discount!

M found a nice big old Forever Pumpkin but it was too expensive for us even with all the discounts.

The glitter started at the front of the store and never stopped.The spiderweb candle holder is cool though.

More Glitter!

Halloween trees and decorations...with more glitter!

Yep! Glitter!

OH NO! Smiley scare crows!

Finally a few items that did not come with glitter. You can't see it but the ghosts were covered in a light dusting of purple glitter...must have been packed up with the other glitter heavy junk!

Some other haunted fare!

The "Keep Calm and Scare On" sign was almost purchased by me.. till I saw the outline border was made entirely of glitter.

Sorry for the blur...your not missing much.. mostly glitter.

Some of these items were nice but a bit on the gothic blingy side for my taste. The boxes were neat and the bottles but those are things we can make ourselves.

 

This candle holder was pretty cool too..just not for that price.

HEY! I mean HAY!

We did buy the most from Micheal's and at a CONSIDERABLE discount to boot! 

TARGET

Target is quickly becoming a sore spot for me. They did not have a single Halloween item out (except greeting cards and that is 3rd party vendor controlled). They were still desperately trying to push out their "Back to School" items all at full price a full month after the schools are back in session! I did see a lovely array of Christmas decorations and lighting out... but no Halloween. To heck with you TARGET!

K MART

They had 1 isle out... you could tell it was haphazardly placed.  They had 3 isles of candy though. The only thing that caught my eye was a dismal posable skeleton... shorter and more comical than the Wallgreens skeles. They wanted 59 bucks for them... No thanks!

HOBBY LOBBY

They had more Fall than Halloween. Almost 2 isles of it. They had 3 end caps with various ceramic and glitter encrusted Halloween ware.....nothing to write home about or even snap a pick of. They did have over 8 isles of Christmas out though...

Mom did manage to find a giant flower she took a liking to there.

PIER 1

25.99 for a 2.5 foot glitter encrusted skeleton. Nuff said! They were having a summer clearance sale. 50% off... that means it is only 4 times overpriced!

ROSS

Only had 2 small isles of Halloween with gaping spaces on the racks. Not sure if they were getting more in, had sold out, or that was it! Glitter was the main theme for Halloween there.

TJ MAX

I was hoping for more from this store. They are affiliated with Home Goods and as such I was expecting a few cool items to be here that I had seen posted a hundred times (such as the headless horseman snow globe). Alas, it was nothing like it at all. Half an isle of fall/Halloween and the majority of that was glitter encrusted.

BIG LOTS

I usually have pretty good luck with Big Lots. They recently went under a HUGE renovation...and it seems their prices did too! Way over priced mediocre items....and of course... GLITTER!

The glitter curse hit Big Lots HARD!

M found a cool Plague Doctor mask she liked but at 25 bucks... she passed. 

The coolest thing Big Lots offered was the motorized crawling hand. Just turn it on and watch it skitter around on the floor... at 29 bucks.. I will just watch re runs of the Adam's Family.

KIRKLANDS

We hit the mall next to stop in for a specific item I have had my eye on ever since I got a email from Kirkland's back in August about their 2013 Halloween line up. I called them on Friday to see if they had the item in question. I was told yes they got 50 in but had sold almost 40 of them. I figured there would be no way they would be sold out by the time I got there on Saturday....Well, they weren't but they were down to their last one! It had a little smudge of missing paint at the bottom. M talked them into taking 10% off.. coupled with another inline printable coupon.. this item was a great deal plus some free stuff to boot! What was it? Continue reading to find out! They had one small little section of Halloween...95% of it was glitter encrusted. 

WALGREENS

I dropped by the local Walgreens looking for the 33 dollar skeles... to my horror, I discovered they were not carrying them anymore. They had replaced them with a posable version that looked very cartoon like ..much like the ones at K Mart. They also raised the price on them to $50. Very disappointed at this as I had hoped to buy 3 or 4 skeles a year till I had an undead army!

 

Blah!

PARTY CITY

They had a big chain across the back half of the store where Halloween usually goes. They had about 65% of it out. I asked the woman at the counter if we could look at it but she told us no, we would have to come back Monday or Tuesday as it was not in their systems yet.... BAHUMBUG!!! Oh well, from the looks of it, we did not miss much.

I figured that we had spent enough time fooling with these lower end Halloween Merchandisers.. not onto the Halloween only stores! 

SPIRIT HALLOWEEN

I was shocked and a little saddened to learn that the two local Spirit stores (within driving distance) was not opening this year. They are no longer associated with PARTY CITY and as such had no lease agreements. After seeing some of the items being posted on the net about what they offer this year... I feel like I am not out too much...except the experience. I had a wallet full of 20% off coupons too! Oh well!

HALLOWEEN EXPRESS

Seeing how they are the only Halloween only related store withing 50 miles, this will be the place to go for most Halloween needs. A big bonus to this place is that it is located on:

Overall it was a pretty cool store...I did not see any glitter at all...but I did see a few inflatables :( I guess you can't win them all. Mom and M had some fun with their photo op display.

Kinda wish the big old inflatable tree was not there.

Something kept bugging my mom about the store.

Very creepy Hospital scene complete with legless zombies on walkers. I guess you could call them "The WALKERS Dead".

Pretty cool animated Grim Reaper. Notice the jumping zombie prop at the bottom. I got one last year for 5 dollars less than this years asking price.

Rocking zombies complete with jumping werewolf. 

We had a lot of fun just strolling around the store looking at the Halloween goodies. M found some costumes for this years Halloween party, but she wanted to wait and see if she could find a better deal online (gotta love a frugal Halloween Head!). Mom found a costume she wanted to wear this year....I had to stop her... Look closely at the picture....notice anything odd? Like an extra bone?

She was dead serious about getting it....I think my mom is losing it in her golden years...

THE LOOT!

The whole purpose of the trip was to get some Halloween STUFF! Here is a list of what we brought home!

One of the main items I went in search of. This will go great with my Kirkland LED painting from last year! They only had 1 left of the initial 50 and it was every so slightly damaged. M got us 10% off plus with a coupon we got an absolutely GREAT DEAL! after 3 or 4 quick brush strokes of orange paint... you can never tell it was damaged at all.

Here is it with the lights on! Just love it!

With out Kirkland's Coupons, we got these little signs for free (yes I know there is some glitter...but glitter is acceptable at parties...SOMETIMES!) 

WALGREENS let me down with the skeles, but they did have these great poly stone tombstones for a fraction of what Target usually asks. I had to get this one because of the engraving. This will most likely be a focal point for the inside this year. This sucker is HEAVY! Great find!

M picked out our Forever Pumpkins for this year at Michael's. 40% off, plus a coupon, plus her Teachers Discount... they were a STEAL!

Grabbed these at Michael's too! Heavy foam but life sized with a hook to hand them.After all our discounts they were just a little over a dollar each.

This great book/box was on clearance for 60%...plus discounts! 

Grabbed this great LED lantern at Michael's too!

Super cheap with discounts!

Picked this up and TJ MAX

Found this HUGE skull at ROSS, It came in Jet black and stark white. M wanted to go with the black. Since it is 3 times larger than a real skull...I figure she has a plan for it in the house decor. 

Last, but not least, a phone cover for my cell. What better way to protect a Haunters Phone than with a genuine Skull Cap phone case! 

Well, my weekend was an adventure to say the least. I am sure we will hit the road again in October in search of elusive Halloween deals.

Hope your weeKEnD was wicKED!

What every well dressed zombie should be wearing this year.

Found these at (of all places) Foodcity!

My occupation requires I wear a suit and these will come in very handy nearer to Halloween.

 For those of you who are thinking, "I would not be caught dead in those!", you could always be caught UNDEAD in them.....

Happy Labor Day! Behold the fruits of my weeKEnD bargain hunting labors!

HAPPY LABOR DAY!

Opps! Wrong kind of labor.....my bad!

  I hope everybody is having a fine Labor Day with little to no labor involved! Labor day signifies the passing of summer and the start of my beloved Autumn season. We start packing up the summer items and start dragging out Halloween from every nook and cranny. In a few short days we will have most of the interior decorations up saving the outside things for the last week of September.

 This past weekend was the first weekend in over a month I could call my own, so we went hunting for Halloween bargains... and boy did we find them. 

 We picked up this very heavy and large pumpkin at CVS Pharmacy. I was impressed at how well constructed it was and it came with it's own red colored light. It's fiber glass and looks like it will withstand years of haunts to come. It was originally 19.99 but we got a discount on it.

 A picture of M holding it to show you just how large this bad boy is.

Lily just liked the box.

He will fit in nicely with all the other jack o's we have collected over the years.

We also nabbed this little guy. He was 5 buck with a discount so how could I say no?

Next we hot Micheal's where not only do they have HUGE 30% to 40% off sales on Halloween and half off one item coupons on their website, but they also give teachers an addition 15% off their entire purchase. Thank you M for being a Teacher!

 Grabbed these little gems to add to the Awful Apothecary look. 

 Snagged our funkins for this year as well. We saved over 70% on them. M wanted to go with a white pumpkin this year... wonder what she will carve... hmmm.

 I am not a fan of glitter Halloween at all! Still, this spoke to me and it is pretty cool. If it get to me too badly, I can always redo it.

 I kicked myself for not getting on of these last year. I have had one for years and I put him in my pond over a fog mister. 

I plan on putting his counter part crawling out of our manhole cover at the corner of the property.

When all was said and done, we ended up saving almost 50 dollars at Micheal's. Kirkland's was our next destination and while I did not take anything from the store, I did leave with a huge regret. They had this very large oil and canvas picture lit from behind with yellow LEDs. 

The pumpkins even flickered. Even at $39.99 I was tempted to get this gem, but alas, I did not. I may have to go back and get it before the end of the season.... time will tell!

Ross's was our next target.

 Grabbed this whimsical sign at Ross for $2.99 which floored me because the same sign at Kirkland's was $11.99.  This is a sign I will leave up year round just for kick and giggles. 

M snagged these salt and pepper shakers at Ross as well. $2.39 was not bad and she has wanted a Halloween set for the table for a long while.

 From there, we hit the Spirit store. First off, if you plan on buying anything at Spirit, make sure you have a wallet full of the 20% off one item coupons with you :

I had 4 coupons and 4 people including myself. That's 4 items at 20% off!

 I got the Haunted Urn finally. I wanted it last year but they were $39.99 and the only one they had was a display that had several nasty gashes in the front. M had asked if they would come down on the price but the manager (who was a real witch) said no. I was pleased to see that they were only $29.99 this year which even beats out Grandinroad which is selling the same product for $34.99 and it's voice track was lame to boot.

 I was amazed to see LED spot lights for $16.99, I had been paying between $24 and $34 for them and these have the weather resistant housings, cords, and mounts to boot. They are super bright and a great deal for the price. I grabbed some black and blue lights, but they had almost every color in the Halloween spectrum. 

M had to have this awful pumpkin head prop. She just loved it. 

M also fell in love with the animated talking Medusa head. She will be a find addition to our interior party decor. Grandinroad was asking $69.99 for the same product (but with red glowing eyes and a lamer voice track). We grabbed her for $39.99 not counting the 20% off coupon! It really pays to shop around (plus I think Grandinroad are thieves and price gougers).

Can't wait to see her in action during this years wicKED weeKEnD Halloween Party!

 Speaking of shopping around for good deals. I was shocked to see Spirit's "Freaky Fabric" selling for $7.99! 

Especially since the Dollar Tree is selling the exact same product for $1!

Spirit was also selling bags of dried moss for 8.99 which you can grab at Dollar Tree for... you guessed it...$1. Please guys, do your homework before you start your Halloween spending!

  Last, but definitely not least, I came home to two HUGE boxes from The Skeleton Store!  Don't forget they are wholesale, have a clearance section, and offer a Home Haunter's discount!

While I will not reveal what I got from there just yet, rest assured it contains the bases for 10 unique props that I intend to further populate the Wicked Woods Cemetery with this year. Lot's of work to do, but I am sure it will be worth it!

When all was said and done, we averaged about 52% off all those items we purchased above. Hope you all find some wicKED deals this year. Just do your research and go prepared! 

Hope you all have a wicKED Labor Day!