Halloween is creeping onto the store shelves!

Now that it's August, Halloween items are making an appearance! A few days ago, I photographed any traces of Halloween I could find at Marshalls, Ross, Kirkland's, and T.J. Maxx. That, or any items that could be construed as Halloween themed.

The first stop was Marshalls. If I'd realized at the time I was taking this picture that I was going to include it on my blog, I might have looked to see what this cat/pumpkin was attached to. I think there was a ghost under the pumpkin. It looks like something white anyway.

In further cute cat items, Marshalls had these towel sets. "Purranormal Cativity"

"Creepin' it Real"

They also had lots of shiny/glittery pumpkins.

These rustic wood or wood-like decorations seem to be pretty hot now. I can imagine something like this on a much larger scale outside a pumpkin patch.

This next item was in the beauty aisle. While not Halloween related, I still think it was the scariest thing in the store!

It kind of reminds me of that sassy stretched piece of skin that was on Doctor Who. It's listed as having gold mica powder in it. Another brand claims to have actual 24K gold in it! I wonder why gold would be in a facial mask? If you really want to get scared, look up gold facial masks on YouTube!

Next up was Ross, which had by far the best deals. Marshalls and T.J. Maxx had some of the same products that were in Ross, only for a dollar or two more!

Ross had awesome prices but no Halloween displays. Luckily, they did have lots of Betsy Johnson stuff and Betsy loves her skulls! So close enough. A turquoise Betsy towel:

Love the trim:

This Betsy blanket reminds me of candy. Bright little skull-shaped candies. Looking at this picture is making me want to go back and get the blanket.

The most creative/wacky skull design on a blanket came from the brand Berkshire Blanket. Yes, that's a skull-shaped pineapple wearing sunglasses. Those were all over the blanket. This is equally summer and Halloween to me.

The most fun surprise of the day came from Kirkland's. I didn't know that Kirkland's was a beautiful housewares store with professional looking displays. For some reason I had it in my head that it was an outdoors store that sold camping supplies!

Kirkland's was definitely in the fall mood. They went so far into fall that they shot right into Thanksgiving! And... they bypassed Halloween on their way there. Although, if you visit Kirkland's web site they have lots of Halloween stuff on it:

Kirkland's Halloween section

The store itself had some nice general autumn decorations and lots of pumpkins.

See those succulents in the pumpkins? I've been seeing a lot of those lately. I think I saw some pics online of a foam Dollar Tree pumpkin hollowed out and filled with some Dollar Tree succulents.

This was my favorite display in Kirkland's. I love this! It's like a little flower shop.

Closing in on a few favorite elements here... I love the way these little flowers are displayed. I took a pic of this mainly so I could replicate it. I think a row of glass vases with a different fall leaf in each would look cool too.

And how cute is this candle label?

I like basically any little wagon I see. Add in that this one is shaped like a pumpkin and it's a real winner! If you collect Halloween figures or dolls, imagine how fun they'd look "riding" along in this.

I like the way they tied the colors together in this display and I like everything on it. Isn't that pillow fun and retro?

I'm including this pic because I like the way the shadows fell on the pumpkin.

Aww...

T.J. Maxx was the last stop. There really wasn't any Halloween there. So I had to stretch things a bit. But either of these two could be a good addition to a Halloween display.

An adorable Betsy Johnson black cat backpack. I want that cat's glasses!

And a classic silver skull along with a matching silver origami cat. The cat is covering its mouth, so maybe it's the "speak no evil" cat in a set? Or it's shocked to see a giant skull in its path?

Are you guys seeing any Halloween stuff on the shelves yet? I'd appreciate any tips on what's out there! Target has previews of their Halloween collection up and that's worth checking out:

Target Halloween Preview 2018

I linked to the indoor decorations, because that's my favorite section. They have outdoor stuff, costumes, etc. on the site too.

Beautiful and Dangerous Nature

Hey everyone! It's been a while since I've been blogging, because it finally thawed out around here and I have to be outside! Can you believe we had snow in late April and today we had over 80° weather? Because I haven't been checking in here much, I've ended up with a number of things to share. So this is going to be one of those Justine's favorites kind of blog posts.

Something I wanted to be sure and share with you guys was a display from last month's Art in Bloom at the Milwaukee Art Museum. You might remember Art in Bloom from past years. If not, it's a wonderful show of flower arrangements that are interpretations of the art.

This arrangement was in the Haitian gallery space. Check out that skull!

This display had a lot of exotic looking plants in it. I actually took a photo of the plant list, because some of these were new to me. I was especially interested in the spidery or octopus looking one in front. This one:

After googling pics of every plant on this list, I didn't find it. So if any of you know what that plant is, please let me know! Here's the flower list:

This is the painting that goes with the floral display, Baron Le Croix (Bawon Lakwa) by André Pierre. If you read the "Designer Statement" at the bottom of the flower list, you'll understand a little bit about the painting and the symbolism. Although, I'm pretty sure you guys had a general idea of what's going on here.

It's worth reading this brief paragraph about Baron La Croix:

Baron La Croix Wiki Page

"The ultimate suave and sophisticated spirit of death" How about that?

Speaking of new and spooky flowers, I saw these little cuties in the woods a few days ago. I was told that these are Bloodroot, and from a google search it would appear that's correct. They don't look like they'd be called Bloodroot, do they? But from what I just read, the juice from this plant is both red and poisonous. And the flowers look so innocent!

If you'd like to read more: Bloodroot Wiki Page

If you read down to the "Toxicity" section on that page, you'll learn why you shouldn't mess with this plant! What I read here is actually pretty scary. To put it simply, do not apply this to your skin because it will destroy your tissue. Don't ingest this or you might vomit or pass out. And you might want to check your mouthwash for "sanguinaria" (another name for Bloodroot) because it could lead to oral cancer down the road. Wow! Nature can be pretty powerful and not always in the best of ways.

Another find in the park was this "Tree Bracket Fungus". I would have called it Seashell Fungus. Don't these look like shells?

From what I've been reading, some of these are not super healthy for trees, but people have turned this bracket or shelf fungi into art. Evidently, it's super hard and makes a good painting surface. If you google "Tree Bracket Fungus Art" you'll see some pretty cool examples.

In other nature news, some of you may have seen this little zebra spider when I shared it on Twitter.

I blogged about these once before. Some fun trivia about zebra spiders is that they don't make webs. Instead, they sneak up and pounce on their little insect victims like a cat! By the way, these spiders are much smaller than this one appears! They're like half the size of a normal ant. Ah, the magic of cropping.

This next picture was scary for me only because I didn't see more than one deer with my eyes before taking it. Then I looked at my camera screen in surprise! There were six deer that I could see, standing out in the open. But those behind this obvious deer totally blended in to the trees. Deer aren't exactly scary, but not realizing there are extra eyes upon you is!

Now that I'm studying this photo, I don't even know if I'm seeing more eyes in the woods! I think I may have just spotted a fifth head back there. I ended up seeing a good 10 in this herd, but who knows how many were actually there.

Onto a view of the outdoors at night. These are pics of the last two full moons we've had. They appeared very differently!

March 31 ~ The Sap Moon:

April 29 ~ The Pink Moon:

It's worth reading this page: Full Moon Names if you'd like to learn why each full moon has the name it does. I hope you guys enjoyed seeing my past month or so in little pieces. I'm finding it fun to write this way, with a little of this and a little of that. Let me know if you guys are seeing any new and interesting plants or insects. Everything is popping out now!

Ghost Pipe

Been enjoying our walks in the woods out back of our little home. Came across something I'd never seen before. Discovered it is called Ghost Flower, Ghost Pipe, Indian Pipe, Corpse Flower or Monotropa uniflora. Thought it was a mushroom. But it's not.

Plants fit for a potion

Several days ago at our local park, I was taking some photos and felt a theme coming together. Something about the light at that time of evening and the unique plant names I saw made me feel like I was in a fairytale. The kind of fairytale where a witch lives in a forest and goes out to collect plants for her brew.

So after noticing a few unique plant names, I started looking for the most witch's brew-worthy ones I could find. If you're ready to use a little bit of imagination, you can take a fairytale tour of our local park and gardens with me.

Care to take a trip into the woods? Legend has it that there's a garden of magical plants on the other side of this forest. People say there is a witch who lives near these woods and collects the magical plants nearby for her secret potions. Let's see if we can find some of those plants...

Deeper and deeper into the forest we go...

There is a wise old tree gnome in this enchanted forest. Can you see him?

The tree gnome says "Just walk straight down this path and you will make it to the forest's clearing. You'll know you're in the right place, because you'll find a magic walking stick. Take it with you and you'll be sure to find all the magical plants you're looking for." Sure enough, at the forest's clearing it appears that someone has left you a walking stick for your journey:

And here is the herb garden!

What will we find here?

Our first find is The Wooly Woundwort:

Yes, this is as soft as it looks!

Sneezewort:

Sneezewort has some cool, patterned leaves:

Soapwort:

I wanted to see the results of boiling the roots/leaves of this plant, so I looked up some videos. You can get some pretty good lather out of these flowers! I was surprised to also find tons of recipes and soapwort products for sale!

Sneezeweed (not to be confused with Sneezewort)

Rough Horsetail:

It looks a lot like bamboo and has these cool little pinecone things:

Snake's Head Fritillary:

I love the name of this one, but it turns out I didn't take a picture of it! I took photos of three other plants, not knowing which was the Snake's Head. Turns out, this is a spring flower. So that's why it wasn't there. I had to look up Snake's Head Fritillary to see what it actually looks like. It's beautiful:

The Snake's Head Fritillary - A Chequered History

I'm trying to figure out the "Snake's Head" name. Maybe the checks on the flowers look like a diamondback snake? Those snakes have check type shapes on them anyway.

Dark Vader Lungwort

How threatening does this sound? Even the "Lungwort" part. It's a cute little polka-dot plant, though.

Primal Scream Daylily:

Prince Tut Papyrus

This made me wonder if there's a King Tut Papyrus that's maybe larger. I took a look and yes there is: King Tut Papyrus And yeah, King Tut is pretty big. The King can grow 48-72 inches tall!

Bonefish Coleus:

These really do resemble fish skeletons, don't they?

Dark Towers Beardtongue:

Dark Towers is a foreboding name. It makes me think of Dark Shadows. And the "Beardtongue" part is pretty creepy too if you visualize it. I wonder where that came from? OK, I just looked that up and got a result that has nothing to do with this photo. Supposedly, some types of beardtongue have the appearance of a hairy tongue protruding from a mouth. Eww.

It has a fittingly Gothic look for a plant named "Dark Towers".

Last but not least, Elvis Lives:

Appropriately, it looks like "The King" of hostas. It's massive!

So here we have what sounds like the perfect ingredients for a Witch's brew:

Wooly Woundwort
Sneezewort
Soapwort
Sneezeweed
Rough Horsetail
Snake's Head Fritillary
Dark Vader Lungwort
Primal Scream Daylily
Prince Tut Papyrus
Bonefish Coleus
Dark Towers Beardtongue
Elvis Lives

Wow, what do you think would happen if those were all mixed together?

Well, you have the chance to find out because guess whose house we've come across!

I think she'll be nice enough to cook us up some of our little finds from the garden. The kind old witch says we picked the winning combination for a lucky brew!

Well, after finding all these mysterious plants, and sampling some brew, it's time to head home. There are some curious creatures to see on the way back, like this friendly fish.

He looks so happy because he spotted that clover. The purple fish ate the clover right after I took this picture.

Another cool creature in the park was the hummingbird moth. If you've ever seen one of these, you know why they have that name. You'll see a large buzzing flying critter coming toward a flower and swear it's a hummingbird, but on closer inspection it's an insect.

I've seen orangish ones like in the first photo, but I'd never seen one with yellow stripes before. Their wings move incredibly fast, so they're a challenge to photograph.

Well, here's your entrance back to the woods. Hope you enjoyed this garden tour!

P.S. ~ A little piece of trivia: The word "wort" in a plant's name comes from the old English word "wyrt". "Wyrt" means "plant". You can go back further with the word and read a list of "wort" plants here: List of Worts