Halloween Shopping in Denver

At the end of our trip to Colorado, Mom and I traveled back to Denver. Our hotel had a big benefit; it was across from a new outdoor shopping mall. And the best Spirit Halloween store I've ever been to was a part of that mall.

We saw some of these same props back in Wisconsin, but they seemed more special here. And the werewolf with those trees seemed perfect for where we were.

The werewolf was probably my favorite prop. Here he is without his eyes glowing. That's scary in a different way. The werewolf makes some pretty believable growling noises as you walk by. To show you:

The Limb Ripper

Check out the Ouija Board section! I didn't see any of this stuff at the Spirit store here. Now that I'm having more time to look this over, I'm seeing a planchette ice cube tray! There's also a Ouija pot holder, bottle opener, placemats (that could actually be used as Ouija Boards!) towels, glasses, candle holders... they've thought of it all. Even what looks like a jug of Ouija moonshine? Not sure about that one, but most of this stuff is pretty cool! That metal bottle opener is clever.

This still has me laughing:

Mummified Skull:

How about this zombie dude? Nice touch with the one shoe.

And for you haunted doll people:

I think she was supposed to move around or something. There were a bunch of smaller standing props clustered around. I was sure they'd move when I came over, but nothing happened. Maybe it was time for a new battery?

We had a great time looking around. I even got a few scares when the props leaped out toward me or made a sudden noise. It was fun to jump up and then laugh a bit at myself for doing so.

That happened with this Forest Demon. This video shows the way it pops up to be frighteningly tall: Forest Demon Demonstration. It really looms over you! The demon's comments are a little cheesy, and somewhat insulting, but the movements... yikes!

This talking tree wasn't going to scare me too much in a store, but maybe if someone put him in a wooded area at night he could be more scary. He says some kind of cheesy/threatening things as you walk by. I found a video of him in action: Deadly Roots

This one gave me the biggest jump scare. I know he doesn't look like much here, but if you find yourself in a Spirit store, give this one a try. Let's just say if you put this on your porch holding the trick-or-treat candy like he is here, you'll have quite a show to watch.

I'm not even going to share a video of the scarecrow, because it would be more fun for you guys to experience this as an in-person surprise.

There was a sort of Area 51 space in the back. At one point, when we were checking out these alien props, I got a really goofy scare. I didn't realize there was a door in the wall next to me. An employee came out of it, carrying some boxes and spooked me. I went "eek!" and jumped and she said "I'm the scariest prop here".  She helped get a few of the tired props going and added to the fun atmosphere there.

This alien is laid out on a table when you walk up to it, but then it slowly rises.

There was even a spaceship flying above us.

After having a fun time getting scared at Spirit Halloween, we checked out some of the Halloween items in JCPenney.

I might need this hat...

How cute is this little truck? I like any display that involves a vintage metal truck that's full of something.

We also went into our first Charming Charlie store. I only knew of their web site before this. I didn't realize that they had actual brick and mortar stores.

Charming Charlie was selling these sugar skull masks. Aren't they cool? I feel inspired to make something like this.

This is a view down one of the pathways between shops. Isn't this festive with the lights? I thought this mall was laid out really nicely.

Across the street from this mall was a Target. They had a little bit of Halloween out at this point. There were these big heads that looked like they could be part of a mascot costume.

One of these could have actually been part of my high school's mascot costume. This looks enough like a Panther, right?

Who could resist spinning the "Hand of Fate"? I like these kind of vintage looking props. I didn't even notice the skull with the glowing eyes until now! I guess my mind was in other places at the time. It was getting to be time to head to the airport when I took this. Anyway, neat skeleton hand on this too!

And then there are these old-timey busts. This looks like it should be at Disney's Haunted Mansion. I'm sure this bust said something, but I can't remember what! It looks like he was in the process of saying something as I took this pic.

Other than the Spirit Halloween store, there was another great surprise to see from our hotel window. We had this amazing view of the sun setting over the mountains. Check this out! Especially the last one.

OK, guys. Get ready for the perfect Halloween sunset!

Woo! You can't beat that.

Tomorrow night is our annual Witch Party! So there will be many pictures in the future! This year's theme is black cats.

At the store...a while back

Let me say this... I did not fully appreciate Creepmas until I came back to this continent.

Here in this town Halloween stuff started hitting shelves end of August. By end of September Michael's was already having their end-of-season sale on Halloween items. I find this disturbing. Although I did take advantage of the situation and buy myself some evil bunting.

However, that said here are examples of fun Halloween merchandise found in the stores over a month ago...

...when I wasn't quite ready.





NOW, I'm ready. Except all you can find in stores now is *&#^%&^%* green and red! Not orange and black!! (Or purple and green...if you go that way.)

The only merchandise I could show you today are half empty shelves of candy and half-priced ceramic pumpkins. I could show you Christmas trees tho...

This explosion of Christmas crap that has hit the stores in the last three weeks --- when Halloween HASN'T EVEN HAPPENED YET -- well, it's left me feeling quite disgusted!

I do not like this. No. Not at all. Please some one put a stop to it.

Uhmmm...Sam?

Source

NEW Rules of Halloween

ALWAYS...

1) Wear a costume

2) Pass out treats

3) Never blow out a Jack-O-Lantern

4) Always check your candy

5) Never stock shelves with Christmas stuff before October 31st!!

Welcome to the Witch Party! 2016

Hey guys! I'm excited to share this year's Witch Party photos with you. This year's party went really well. We were fortunate enough to have some nice, almost summery weather the night of the party. Things came together in a more organized way than ever, but then I guess we should have it together after having a Witch Party for 16 years! Can you believe it? Neither could our guests.

Here's one of this year's invitations. Going through the shops this year, I haven't been so much inspired by the Halloween merchandise as the Day of the Dead stuff. So I was in the mood for bright colors as well as gold for some reason.

See the eyeball? I was inspired by those Bizarro comics. You know how there's an eyeball hidden in those?

As I said in the last blog post, we were lucky enough to have some Halloween stamps this year! They looked nice on the purple envelopes.

This picture goes to show how nice the weather has stayed. There are still zinnias out there.

Here's that little floral display I mentioned in the last post, the one where I used the leftover flowers from my hat band.

Finally I found a way to work these life-size glitter skulls into a decoration. They were really pretty with the candlelight on them.

The other skull got to go in another prop that I never knew what to do with. It's depressing to have something locked in a cage, but to have a killer spider escaping from a cage works fine. I wanted it to look like the spider was storing the remnants of its victims in there!

You'll notice that the spider is holding what I think of as a ticket to the party. I found this free printout on The Graphics Fairy web site. You guys might want to check that out, because there are a lot of vintage looking Halloween printouts there. (That link goes to the Halloween section.)

So I added a little glitter to the printout and there ya go:

I feel like this skull in a cage prop could work with a pirate theme too.

So going inside...

This came with my Victoriana calendar years back:

Remember the bottle collection and my spell book?

A slithery snake...

This witchy toad is actually a large pin you can wear. It came from one of our Cedarburg trips.

Can you believe mom made every one of these witch hats out of felt? This is a miniature witches' coat rack. That's a spooky tree holding the hats. See the little broom too? Each guest was supposed to get one of these hats, but I think they thought the hats were too nice to take. So the hat and coat rack remained intact. 

I was happy to find the last pack of those glitter balls at Dollar Tree. Can you believe they were only $1.00?

The paper fringe border gave a vintage look to the display, like when people decorated for Halloween with paper in the 1920s-30s.

The napkins were a Tuesday Morning find years back. They look like little shirts and they stand up on their own.

Mom also made the brooms.

One of the place cards:

A few of these glitter spiders were holding candles on the table.

The gold snakes I shared in the last post were out and about.

One blended in nicely on a big spell book.

This witch/crow statue made its debut this year after getting a makeover. She'd been a gift and was very plain before and had a different face.

So now I'm very happy with her and it's like she's a brand new decoration.

Here's my new hat band in action!

I included this one to show you my feet. I was really happy with how the sock and shoe combination went.

I found those shoes a decade or so ago at a thrift shop for $3.00. They're from the 60s and really well made. These kind of heels appear to be in style this year too. I'd been doing some of that genealogy research at the library and saw some old school photos of my grandmother on Ancestry where she and the other girls were wearing little foldover socks with their shoes. I thought "That is so cute! I want to try that!" So I had a chance to for the party, and this is my version of that look.

You'll have to bear with the angles on these photos, because it's hard to take a picture of your own foot. OK, so I wanted to show you a special feature of these socks. Here's one folded over:

And when you lift the cuff, you can see the skeleton's polka-dot boxers!

The earrings I wore:

And I had to include this picture to brag up that I actually got the false lashes on my entire eyes this time! With the advice some of you have given me, I cut part of the eyelashes off before applying them. That worked a lot better.

Mom in her outfit:

Some of you may have heard from me about these cookies! They're like a sugar cookie but with extra cinnamon added and they're amazing! I got the recipe last year in the WE Energies Christmas Cookbook they give out in Wisconsin. I only tried this one recipe out of the book but I've tried it again and again. I made these for New Year's (stars), Valentine's Day (hearts), and for summer (flowers). This time it was pumpkins. 

You'll want to try this simple and delicious recipe:

Cinnamon Hearts (Go to page 20 in the pdf)

So I decided to decorate each pumpkin a little differently:

Some were different warm colors and others had faces like traditional jack-o-lanterns.

These two characters were some of my favorites:

 

Him too:

The one with the sprinkles ended up reminding me of a doughnut.

Spiderweb pumpkin:

That bug started as a cat face with whiskers, then somehow morphed into a bug.

The cookies must have been good because a few people grabbed some to take home!

We had a new kind of ice cream, at least to us. It's called Chicago Brick, I assume because it looks like bricks on old Chicago buildings? Chicago Brick is three flavors: Orange Sherbet, Vanilla, and Caramel. It is so good! You might not think these flavors would go together, but they do.

 

We had fun playing around with some of those photo props on sticks:

I went outside to take a few photos as it got darker.

This skull you might remember from years past. You've usually seen it hanging out in the trick-or-treat bowl.

I was very fortunate to spot the moon as the clouds drifted off of it for a few minutes. The night was mostly overcast. I was making a point of looking for the moon because on the 15th we had a Full/Super/Blood/Hunter's Moon! How perfect is that for a Halloween party?

These are the gifts the guests brought:

Notice how they used the Bewitched font?

Some gourmet nuts:

Chocolate covered sunflower seeds, which I thought were popcorn kernels and some really good candy. Werther's Original caramel apple and Lindt's pumpkin filled chocolates.

A lavender scented dryer ball, which was new to me. It smells really good!

And a cute little witch ornament. Her hands were naturally out like that so I gave her one of the candies to hold.

Although, I think she could hang from that loop on her hat, she's propped up here on a candle holder.

Hope you guys enjoyed the photos! And speaking of parties, I'd still like to do the Halloween Blog Party the weekend before Halloween, so send me those costumed photos!