Wicked Wares from our first official Halloween Shopping trip of 2016

We hit the stores this Labor day weekend on a carefully planned trip to maximize our time to find the most Halloween there is. We had a route in mind and a timeline and stuck to both...what we did not stick to was a budget....we went way overboard...WAY over. Anyhow I was pleased with what we found and thanks to my professional shopper wife M, she saved us a ton of money. She had apps on her phone that just pulled coupons out of the air wherever we went!

First off, very aggravated at Target again this year. They had Halloween cards out with a big sign. The Bargain Halloween items were out at the beginning if the store but no Halloween. They had tons of Back to School crap and some Avengers Costumes left over from last year.... BLAH!
Same thing for Walgreens (2 huge isles cleared but only one small section of last years stuff) Kmart (huge cleared area but only some of last year crap) and Walmart (tons of christmas though).

I actually found a box of clearance items I had ordered from Spirit back in March of this year. This stuff is too good not to post:

Glow in the dark skulls. 2 bucks each from Spirit Clearance Sale !

Great addition the the Black Light Ballroom for $20!

Fancy little Lenticular...a steal at $2 Spirit clearance!

The last of my Spirit Clearance items from March and, you guessed it, 2 bucks each. I figured M would like to use this at her job or if she ever decided to rob a bank. 

Target Bargain isle $3 each

Target $3. Will go great in the bar! and it is reversible! 

Like 2 signs for 3 bucks!

More $3 Target items. M got 2 each of these to Put in the Eerie Elegant Dining room.

Found these at Michael's . They had 30% off Halloween and M found a 20% off Coupon so everything was half price! $10 each! These will go in the living room on the new couch.

$4 Michaels. Got this one for the balcony door during daylight hours. 

New Lenticulars! I will have a wall of these one day! $4 each Micheals.

Michael's $3 each. 

Got these for the buffet table at Michaels. $7.50 each.

M found her a cover for the desert table for the Halloween Party. $4 Ross.

M loved this pumpkin at Ross. It had the tiniest chip in the stem (which I fixed within 10 minutes of getting home) she got %10 off becuase of it! $7.

Ross for $10. M wants to put it in the middle of the new couch flanked by the skull pillows we snagged at Michaels. 

I could not believe this item at Ross for $10. Heavy metal door knocker with hardware. This is going on the front door TODAY!

This is the only item we bought from an actual Halloween Store (Halloween Express) 75% off! $4!

I am sure we will do a couple more runs before October sets in. Have any of you found anything great so far?

Wicked Wares - First Haunt gear for the 2016 year

Near the ass end of August, all the stores add Halloween to their exhaustive line up of christmas that has been out since June...and I love it!

While M and I have not been out on a full Halloween buying spree (we plan on going next weekend) I have been gearing up with some awesome deals already!

First great deal was from the Dollar Tree. We found plastic skeleton hand servers. I bought a pair of these from Target 3 years ago and spent 30 bucks on them. Of course they were metal, but these plastic ones are great too! WE got 4 more and they are awesome for dipping in, gripping and serving chips of any kind. Price $1.00 each.

Next up is an even more upgrades to the lighting system. I got 3 new Blue LED flood lights and 2 more green to replace some of the florescent I was forced to use last year.  5 pack bulk rate price $28.99 shipping and handling from EBAY!

I had planned on adding at least one more AtmosFX digital window to the house this year so I jumped at the chance to get a 7000 lumen hd LED projector for the job. $71.88 free shipping Ebay.

I found a great clearance deal for a king of cheesey prop. Found this 6' static Zombie girl on clearance at Party City for 25 bucks. This props is nothing more than a 6' metal pole with a christmas tree 4 leg stand and wire arms attached to a creepy head and hands with a moldy looking dress thrown over it. M can use chicken wire to build her out a bust and body and we can fill the arms out with pool noodles. Paint her up a bit more realistic and throw a tattered dress from good will on her and she is awesome! She is $100.77 with shipping and handling from Spirit and Halloween Express both. I paid $25 flat and I found a free shipping and handling coupon to boot!

The biggest purchase (thus far) is the Haunted Shovel from Spirit Halloween.

I was not planning on using it alone as that seems kind of cheesy...A haunted shovel....I am going to put it in the hand of this static prop thus making him ALIVE!

I will just replace his old antique (real) shovel with the haunted one! Of course I will have to move him closer to the front porch near the cemetery sign and coffins for maximum effect. I also got this at a pretty good deal. I had a 25% off coupon for any 1 animitronic prop and a had a free shipping voucher from last year in the mail. my price was $74.99 flat.

Anybody else getting in good deals or secret coupons they want to talk about?

Instant Mad Scientist Lair... just add reanimated monster!

Sometimes life hands you lemons...and you make lemonade even though you really wanted margaritas....

Sometimes life give you really cool things and asks for nothing in return. Like this mother load!

 First, M found 30 more of these large purple test tubes with individual base. She got them for a whopping 27 cents each!

Then M lucked up and found a 3 boxes of beakers, vials, and other chemistry hardware that was about to head into the trash! That's right FREE!

I am not sure when, but there will be a very cool mad scientist lair pop up in future haunts/parties.

This is the crowning jewel of the finds

That's right, an authentic old fashioned, stoppered hydrochloric acid bottle. I think I will just use it to drink lime koolaid from! 

My first wicKED gift of the season!

A couple of our good friends brought me a gift along with M's Birthday presents over the weeKEnD. Huge purple vials with screw on tops and bases to sit on. These were .59 cents each at a local store! The possibilities are endless, but I am thinking one of the following:

1. Use them as a shotglass for Purple People Eater drinks (Grape juice, Redbull, Grape Vodka)
2. Run tubing and glowing liquids in them to make a nice mad scientist lab bank.
3. Store gross creatures and specimens in them and add them to the apothecary.  

Just trying to show you how large they are.

They all have tight fitting screw tops as well.

If you turn it upside down in it's holder.......it just makes me nervous!

Monday's Monstrous Mega post {Deals to Die for}

Like many Halloween Heads/Home Haunters, we are on a budget. Anytime we can get a good deal on a sweet Halloween related items is a double win in our books. Here is the fiendish finds of this year...hope there is more!

Found this in a yard sale for a buck!

Another yard sale find. A bamboo spice rack. Still have the Walmart tag on it for 7.98. We got it for 50 cents.

Yard sale find. It was broken at the base but with a little glue and paint, it was well worth the dime we paid for it.

M's finds at various TJ Max type places. Got these for 60% off.

Yard sale finds. 10 cents each. The bottle came with the cotton and the dice...strange!

Found at a local Magic Mart for 50 cents.

New machete with a wooden handle for a buck...can never have enough machetes!

More skull shot glasses to add to the collection. A buck each.

M found these never opened light sets at a yard sale. Paid a dollar each. I am not a fan of string lights in a haunt but these will be great for the Halloween Party!

Yard sale for...you guessed it. A quarter!

I won this free from Bindlegrim! Check out his sight here!

Heavy Tablecloth for the Halloween party. 50 cents.

Creepy doll heads at an estate sale. They had 5 bucks on them for the set but they were 50% off so we made off with them for 2.50.

Not sure what exactly I will do with them....

but I hope it is creepy!

Found these at Pier One for 90% off the whopping 7 dollar price tag. May use these for a blog giveaway.

Found these on a recent trip to Roanoke Virginia at a hobby store. Everything was 75% off. These cost a whopping 2.50.

Same shop in Roanoke...these were 1.75

Coming back from Roanoke we stopped a Cracker Barrel and found 90% off Halloween items! Got this for 2 bucks!

Same Cracker Barrel produced M some wich shoe covers for a dollar.

Salt and pepper shakers at a Cracker Barrel in JUNE! 25 cents each! 

M found the mother load at a local school. They were selling OLD books for about 50 cents each. Some of these are as old as 1820! 

This one appraised at 50 dollars! 

Most of the poor conditioned ones we will re-purpose into creepy haunted books. The others like this one, we ill put out for effect. 

This was also in the collection from 1977

Egads! Instruments to examine the kidney from the late 1800s!

One of he best deals I have gotten this year is the new computer system. 

With the new photo and video editing capabilities, I cannot wait for Halloween!