Thread: New and interesting Halloween prop items at retail stores this weekend?

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I've been "dying" for Halloween items to replace Back to School merchandise over the past few weeks. I imagine this weekend, various stores like the following will have all or most of their Halloween items out. If you're going shopping this weekend, what new and interesting, or at least cheap, props or items that could be used in props, have you seen?

I mean stores like:

* Michaels / AC Moore
* Walmart
* Target
* Kohls (they sometimes have Holiday projectors, I think)
* Drug stores like CVS and Walgreens
* Big Lots
* KMart
* Dollar stores like Dollar Tree, Dollar General, and Family Dollar
* Local Spirit retail stores (although I hate buying from them until the season is over due what I feel are hyper-inflated markups)
* Spencers

etc.

A few weekends ago, I picked up some great Halloween hand and feet pairs at Dollar Tree for $1 a pair. I'll be sticking the feet out of the ground in my graveyard. The hands could be used as part of the FCG I'm hoping to build. Saw that someone already discovered these in another thread and added lights to them. Great job.

Figured it might be fun to have a single thread where people could post their findings.

Walgreens had stuff a few weeks ago, nothing great but it was start. Michaels, near my house had Halloween stuff out a couple of weeks ago. Picked up some crafts for the kids and a cool papier mache skull for making day of the dead masks. We have a spooky town store opening next week in a temp location. No Spirit store in the area this year.

Big Lots

* Flying Ghost. 3ft high + 25 foot cable. The ghost looks lame but I'm wondering how to repurpose it into something scarier / cooler.
Sells for $16 at Big Lots:



KMart has the same thing (different art work on the box) for $18. Walgreens has a 2ft high model--again, same thing and probably same manufacturer, for $10:



Anyone used this thing for something other than its intended purpose? Also, it is sound-activated. Can you defeat that and make it continuous?

* Motion Lights. "16 functions with memory" for $12.50. I bought one to see if I could use it for a cheaper Ghostly Footprints effect. Unfortunately the lights aren't LEDs, but I wonder if they could be replaced... Don't know if you can control the speed. Don't think so. That's a real pity if not, but I don't see a speed control:




Home Depot and Lowes don't seem to have holiday lights out yet. Anyone seen anything like this that has both the different patterns *plus* speed control?

KMart

* Great find of the day! $1.50 plastic garden urns on clearance. I bought two white ones so I could spray paint them to look like they're made of stone. These will go in the graveyard or flank the front steps. Guess I could put dry ice + glow sticks in them:


* "Life sized reaper with poseable arms" - $25. Might get one if my FCG doesn't, erm, fully materialize. I could at least get the thing to do an up and down motion:



* "Rising Zombie" - $40. This is a bit small and lame. Would only consider for repurposing the guts and using it to animate some other prop.


Walgreens

* Lots of cheap gravestones as always. They have sets of 3 for $10 I think. Or 2 for $10. Sorry, no photos. But really cheap source for gravestones.

* Flickering candelabra. $8. Not very large but pretty light. I may buy one of these and try to animate it so it floats in a circular motion (like the one in the Haunted Mansion's endless corridor). Any suggestions on how to animate it?


Party City
* Rocking Bat. $30? Says it rocks back and forth and had a "try me" button. But the actual rocking function is probably disabled by default.


Rite-Aid
* "7 Orange Flicking Lights" - $8. These are "C7" sized, e.g. will fit in a cheap $1 incandescent night light fixture from, say, Dollar Tree. Pissed because I paid $4 just just one of these bulbs to achieve a Brown Out lighting effect.


Please post your findings.

Anyone been to Dollar General or Family Dollar, etc?

I bought one of those rocking bats on sale at Target last year.
It rocks pretty good!

For animating the candelabra, I recommend an up down movement via a mechanism like the flying crank ghost, except you need only one line / connection. Light it with blue lighting in a dark area to give it a ghostly look of it rising and lowering itself.

Not much in any of my stores yet. Went to Walmart Sat. and they had X-mas stuff out but no Halloween! WTH!? I was disappointed with Michaels. They usually have some good stuff but not much this year. Did pick up a cute potion bottle though. Halloween store opened at out mall and was disappointed with alot of the props seeing them in person. I usually go back the day before halloween and pick up some stuff half off.

I got that same reaper from K-Mart, that one is the best of the three available... he (or she) is great! It looks awesome under a black light...
Michaels has some really cool stuff in our area as does Target (finally), haven't checked wally world yet... Spirit has some cool stuff but the price is high (love the whole zombie wasteland thing). TJ Maxx was really surprising with H2011 stuff, kinda classic decore but nice with witch, cat, skull and bones type stuff!

Originally Posted by sumrtym

For animating the candelabra, I recommend an up down movement via a mechanism like the flying crank ghost, except you need only one line / connection. Light it with blue lighting in a dark area to give it a ghostly look of it rising and lowering itself.

Thanks Dave, Sumrtym and others.

I posted pics of around 10 items I found today in my local Target (central North Carolina). Finally... they had nearly all their stuff out.

2011 Halloween Mdse Sightings in Stores!!!