Sunday, November 2, 2008

After-Halloween Sale Shopping

The day after Halloween, Mr. T and I woke up (not too early), went out to breakfast, and strategized about what we needed. We then proceeded to go to 13 stores:

Ace Hardware
Halloween Superstore
Walgreens
Andronico's
Z Gallery
Restoration Hardware
Crate and Barrel
Sur La Table
Some random other home store in the same neighborhood as the last four
Paper Source
Target
Ikea
Pottery Barn

I was worried when we set out because it was later in the day (like noon) and I had gotten multiple calls and emails saying that stores were out of things and that some stores had started discounting items earlier in the month, but we did okay, actually.

Here's what we bought (I haven't totaled the receipts yet, but I believe we spent about $150?):

Ace Hardware: 6 strands of lights. There's not a ton of outlets in the room, so we were just going to light up the two sets of railings that separate the sunken middle section of the room:



At the Halloween Superstore, they were pretty cleaned out, and anyway, their stuff is always pretty cheap. I did pick up a cute plush bat bucket for the flower girl's basket:


Tikka agrees that the bat is very interesting:


At Andronico's, I picked up two high-quality pumpkin carving sets, two metal luminaries, and a spider candle holder:


At Z Gallery, they didn't have much, but what they had was 70% off! We got a glittery "tree" and a glittery black cat candle:




You can see that Dobby is very interested by the tree, or maybe it's that paper bag she's spying on:


Target, which I thought would be empty, actually had a lot and was our biggest haul. We got a 5-foot black tree with orange lights (we figured this could go in one of the two large niches in the wall, or over by the bar area), a smaller table top tree with vintage-looking Halloween ornaments for the guest book table, a black (fake) pumpkin with Happy Halloween carved into in orange letters, a cute box for cards for the gift table, runners for the cake and guest book tables that are silver with black velvet webs on them, and two orange frames for photos:





Pottery Barn was our last stop, and again, I was surprised they still had stuff. We probably got there around 5:30 and we were what my friend calls "hangry"--so hungry that we were very irritable. Mr. T didn't love their stuff, but I did, but it was one of those disagreements where it was very civilized and considerate, "If you like them, get them!" "No, if you don't like them, I don't want to buy them; this is not all about me." So, instead of buying their entire stock of skull and crossbones votives (Mr. T had mixed feelings about using a lot of skull imagery for our wedding), we compromised and got one set to help decorate the bookshelves. And we also got a really cool metal bone candle holder. They had cool feathery garland, but those were $15 a piece even on sale, so I thought I'd skip them.




After all that shopping we were exhausted! Our feet and legs even hurt, and this is from a couple of people who walk over 2 miles almost daily. We were also soaked, since it was pouring rain all day.

We still need table decor (and a fog machine for Mr. T!), but we might be almost set for the rest of the room, so that's progress!!

1 comment:

Renee Bastet said...

Your D.O.C. approves! Way to go! I really love the black tree. Dibs on purchasing stuff you don't want to keep after the wedding. :)
Renee