Happy Halloween Goodies at Stein's

I've been looking forward to sharing my annual photos of Stein's! I took these pics a couple days ago when it was bright and sunny out. It was also pretty darn cold. A brisk, chilly wind was whipping my hair around in the same way it was whipping this scarecrow's hair around.

Steins had a lot of cute scarecrows out.

They also had a massive selection of these clay jack-o-lanterns.

As you can see, some of them were pretty large! I think they would all look great outdoors, lit with a big candle.

I was calling these the peanut head pumpkins.

And I thought these looked like they had little hats on them. Sort of stem hats.

I was amused by these because it looks like the bottom pumpkin is kind of miffed holding the others up.

I guess you burn a fire in the lower part of this one?

This is probably my favorite:

And one little clay ghost:

Stein's had a pretty good array of gourds. I think I've seen more different gourds in stores this year than usual.

I was so excited to see this one, because I had seen it on a gourd identification web site recently. When I saw it on the web site, I thought it was so cool and unusual. So it was neat to see this in person. This is fittingly named "Peanut Pumpkin".

Seriously, doesn't this pumpkin look like it has a bunch of peanuts glued to it?

These gourds always remind me of swans. I think I'd have to paint an eye on one of these if I bought one.

Just after typing that, I looked at this next picture and saw that this one naturally comes with an eye!

This one was listed as the "Full Moon Pumpkin". How perfect is that?

A very warty gourd:

Stein's had lots of regular pumpkins too. I don't have much to say about those, but here they are. 😆

How cute is this? I had to take my annual photo of one of these planters. I ought to paint a jack-o-lantern face on a planter, since I like this so much. It makes whatever plant is in it look like funky hair.

I love these mini pumpkins with faces. I'm guessing the faces are temporary tattoos? This is my first time seeing some with party hats.

Kitty cat pumpkins with feathery hairdos:

Most of the flowers for sale now are mums. I like the way the light and shadows came out in this pic. It looks like I messed with this because the colors are so vibrant, but I didn't.

I love those little ornamental peppers! These always seem to appear in fall, in with decorative cabbage.

These are like miniature carrots.

I'm not sure if I've seen a purple splotchy one like this before.

Believe it or not, these are ornamental peppers too! They're called "Black Pearl" which I think is a very fitting name. They're so reflective that I can see myself in them. I'm that little vertical line in the middle of each. 😁

So, onto the indoor Halloween decorations. Sometimes I like how the photos of a store display look more than what I saw with my eyes. With some cropping, I can focus in on what I liked best on a shelf. In this case, I'm not sure why these pumpkins look better in photo form. At the store I was thinking "Why are they silver?" and now I'm thinking "These look like some cool brushed metal, industrial pumpkins!"

I think those pumpkins would look neat with a robot display, assuming people make Halloween robot displays. I also think these decorations would look neat with the silver pumpkins:

I was playing around with the items on the shelf, assembling what I thought might look good together. Don't you think this sign, bat, and one of those silver pumpkins would look neat together?

This next sign made me laugh out loud. It's a take off that "Enter as strangers, leave as friends" sort of message, except it says "Enter as strangers, leave if you can". Even now, I'm smiling at that.

Glitter crow!

How cute is this truck, complete with a pumpkin on its door? If you've read my blog for a while, you might have noticed that I love any small, vintage looking truck with anything holiday-themed in the back of it. Pumpkins are of course a favorite truck passenger of mine.

I loved these next two pumpkins! I've never seen pumpkins emitting... dry ice? Fog from a fog machine? Not in person anyway. This is the kind of thing I've seen in a movie, maybe a movie with a super cool Halloween party involved.

The lights inside these pumpkins changed colors.

I found this cat genuinely creepy. I don't know why, really. Maybe because it looks like it's up to no good? Or because it looks like something out of a Pharaoh's tomb if it lost the pumpkin?

How fun are these? Fishnet socks for those who don't want to bother with the fishnet stockings! And how many socks feature a buckle? That actually makes no sense, but I guess the buckle implies a witch's boot?

I like this vintage-inspired cat that was on a jar lid. I think I would like it even better with a body. Or it could look cool as a much larger cat head just sitting on a shelf.

I love this little vintage looking owl too! Like the cat above, I would have liked it even better if it wasn't attached to anything. That's probably why I took a photo of just the owl and not the bowl it was attached to.

I always have to take a pic of a skeleton pirate. This one has a massive earring!

And lastly, here's one of the most tempting things I saw at Stein's. This is one of a series of skeletons on a string of lights. It reminds me of some little party favor at a kid's Halloween party. There's something nostalgic about it.

So there's this year's trip to Stein's! They had some pretty good stuff. As far as I know, Stein's is just a Wisconsin store. So probably most of the people reading this haven't been to one. If anyone outside of Wisconsin has a similar store, I'd be interested in hearing about it! 

Pumpkins, Mums, Corn, and more at Stein's

I have a pure autumn post for you guys! You might remember my photos from Stein's Garden and Home last year. Well, I took a ton more this year. It was such a beautiful, sunny day. So I was happy with what the light was doing for the pumpkins and flowers.

The Guardian of the Gate:

Isn't that the perfect blue sky to go with the orange pumpkins?

Some, cool twisted stems:

I was lucky to get these shots, because it looks like Stein's has been doing well this year. As in, they were mostly sold out! Also, there were a couple guys loading up pumpkins as I took these pics. I overheard one saying "We're going to need 48 of them". So I was lucky to see the pumpkins before they went away! It also proved quite the challenge avoiding these guys, so they wouldn't be in my shots. They seemed to need the pumpkins I was photographing no matter where I moved. Maybe I was drawing too much attention to the good ones. 😉

I called this one "Bert" as in Bert and Ernie:

How dramatic is this corn stalk, reaching up to the sky? Again, I love it with the blue sky.

Little cuties:

There are some irregular ones here. I just noticed one on the top row that would be perfect for a skull design!

As you can see, they had the cool ceramic Halloween characters back in stock.

We're onto my favorite photos from the day! I hadn't seen such a variety of Indian Corn there in the past. These colors are so beautiful! Some of them look like painted glass.

Look at those colors!

I'd like to have each of these kernels in bead-form. I think a necklace made of beads that looked like these kernels would be so pretty!

This photo is my favorite of the bunch! That bottom Indian Corn reminds me of Candy Corn. I almost typed "Candy Corn" instead of Indian Corn. Those stripes are so cool!

Here's a bit of trivia I just learned. Some people call this "Flint Corn" because there is an outer layer on the kernels that is super tough, so tough that it's compared to flint. It's there to protect the softer tissue inside of the kernel.

And I called these The Candy Corn mums, because of the three colors they arranged together.

I love the way the light hit right in the middle of these flowers.

A photobombing sweat bee!

Here's a giant bunch with colors I hadn't seen before. I'm used to seeing mums in just one color. These have an almost dried flower look.

These were in with the ornamental peppers, which is actually what they're listed as. They're just so tiny, it's hard for me to think of them as peppers! These little guys are called "Hot Pops" which makes them sound like candy. They kind of look like candy.

These are appropriately named "Explosive Blast".

I'm not sure what Stein's was calling these carrot-like peppers. I didn't see a sign for them.  The internet in general is calling them Thai Peppers and some people are selling them as "Santos".

I like them next to those magenta flowers.

These peppers are called "Masquerade" although I'm not sure why.

There were a bunch of happy scarecrows for sale outside.

Along with these goofballs. I like the hair on that one in the back!

These are my favorite pumpkins - The Cinderella:

I've always thought they were named this because they look like Cinderella's coach. If you image wheels on this pumpkin.

Royalty Pumpkins - They might be named this because they look like mini-Cinderella pumpkins?

Casper Pumpkins:

More pumpkins were inside, but they were of the velvet variety.

It's hard to tell the scale of things in photos, but this was super tiny!

Ghoulie Skeleton Girl:

This spider was woven from bent sticks I think.

This is the display by the front door. Lots of metal and rustic decorations here.

And back outside, this is the Stein's sign that welcomes you in.

I'm pretty sure Stein's stores are only in Wisconsin, but let me know if there's anything like this where you are! I'd love to do a little virtual shopping in some of your local shops.

If you'd like to revisit my previous Stein's trips, here are those photos:

Stein's 2016

Stein's 2015

Those 2016 pics look like I took them on a cloudy day, but 2015 is sunny. I wonder what happened to the giant foam pumpkin I photographed in 2015? That was pretty cool!