I have never been so excited as when our DIY IKEA “built-ins” were done and all I could imagine was how they were going to be decorated for the holidays. I had promised Sean that in off-season (any time there is not a holiday lol) that I would keep them very miminal with little to no decorations other than picture frames and honestly, as much as I hate to admit it, he was right and they look amazing that way. However, you better bet your bottom dollar that I was going to go all out for Halloween and Christmas (yes I started with the Christmas purchases on Target and no you cannot judge me).
I follow several Target instagrammers, but two who I follow religiously and do the most purchasing from when they post are TargetDoesDisney and CatandJackbyTarget. I have bought so much of the Halloween and Christmas stuff that they have promoted recently that it is not even funny. Yes, Christmas as well! I normally just go for the jammies (because they sell out so fast and I tend to buy ones for the following year too if they are really cute), some of the disney christmas clothing, and I loved the spooky kitchen so much, I am doing a Christmas one too so I have been getting things early for that, since this stuff seems to be the first to go and I try to be minimal with the visits to Target. Both accounts literally post the best stuff, it is almost immediate from when it hits the site and I am pretty much able to score all the coveted items (Bullseye not included).
Tips on getting the good stuff early:
Go early in the morning. Like store opening early. I have found that it is the luck of the draw. I am lucky with where I live in South Florida in that there are four Targets within a 30 minute drive of me (one is about two minutes and another is about ten and the other two are a little bit more of a drive). I have come to realize that they will all do their releases differently and what they release in one store can be different from another. For instance one Target released all of their Halloween Bullseye goodies at the end of August while another is still doing it in REALLy slow increments for whatever reason. Also, there always seems to be that one Target that gets everything good, so it is your first stop Target when doing a Target run (this Target is also the furthest one for me, but I love the store, the employees, and how it is set up, so its worth the drive). How you choose to live everyday during the pandemic is up to you, but I have two immuno-compromised kiddos so I am one, always masked up anywhere I go and two, I tend to go during the Senior hours with my Mamala (she is going to kill me for admitting this). I have found that Target is a lot more pleasurable to shop around during this time, getting a Starbucks coffee is more enjoyable during this time, and at least for our stores this is normally when all the new stuff is getting unboxed. Because of this, you can find me doing my Target rounds anywhere between 8-830am. Plus, the kids are usually still sleeping at this time, so I do not feel guilty leaving them behind. The pandemic mom guilt is real.
Second, turn on the notifications for the items out of stock . I include this with the caveat that this is not for the faint of heart. Turning on notifications can be incredibly frustrating and if you care about your sanity at all or you are a little too invested in the item, you may want to pass on this tip altogether. Traditionally when you get notified, only one or two of said items are dropped and if you are not ready to purchase the second the notification goes off (I am not being sarcastic in the least about this second) or you do not have a Target account (we cannot even be friends if this is the case) with your payment information ready to go, you will 100% lose the item by the time you hit the complete order button. Here is another frustrating part, sometimes Target catches on to the hysteria and before when there was not a minimum amount you had to spend on that item, now one week later, you have to spend $35 to get it. This means that you are adding items to your cart (it does not matter if you are RedCard or not) just to get that item or leaving the items in the cart until the item pops backup. Furthermore, you could purchase all of your $35 including your “in-stock” and then come to realize that the item (the whole reason for the $35 purchase) that you wanted has not been purchased (here is looking at you LED potion bottles), but everything else that you added has been. It’s quite the “how bad do you want this” cycle.
Does that mean I will no longer turn on notifications….no….because I am a glutton for punishment.
Make friends with the Target employees! Be super friendly and do not bombard them immediatly with product numbers as this tends to be frowned up and I go with the “I get more bees with honey approach”. Often times being a Target frequenter and talking to the employees will have you befriending at least one of them who has a shared interest with you and they will be super excited to tell you when stuff is being put on the shelves or when to come back for what you are looking for. I have a person like this in two stores. I never call for them, I never ask for them to put anything aside or anything that could potentially get them in trouble, but when I am in the store and I am looking for something in particular, they will go out of their way to find said item whether in their store, somewhere else or it may involve ripping apart boxes trying to find the item for me. I am beyond grateful every single time that someone goes up and beyond just to try to help me out and keep me from having to come back multiple times.
Anywhooo…I digress (don’t be shocked). Let’s talk about what you actually came here for.
I have been following sierralmiller Instagram for awhile and she comes up with the cutest holiday decorations and was the originator of when I started the Boo Fairy as it was her Boo Buckets that I first fell in love with and thus the Boo Fairy was born. She does more than just a spooky kitchen for Halloween, so I highly suggest giving her a follow and falling in love with her like I did. In front of our built-ins, is the kids play kitchen and since everything else in that area was decorated, I thought it would be fun to take a page from her playbook and spookify the kitchen. EV loves anything spooky and lit up, so I already knew it was going to be something she was going to be excited to play with and getting all the fun decorating items truly made it something special. It is so much fun to see how much they look forward to the night time and their spooky kitchen being all aglow. The Commodore audibly gasps every single time the lights go on. Worth. It
Other inspirations:
*all inspo pictures are hyperlinked*
Each one of these is so creative and allows you to play with as much or as little spooky touches as you want. However, for us, I definitely went the less cutesy approach and the more spooky is more approach!
Everything that I planned pretty much centered around THIS sign that I scored in Bullseye.
Once I figured out how to hang up the sign in the kitchen (you will see how I did this below) “just to see” if it worked, it was off to the races and there was no pulling the reigns (whats with the horse references) on my creating the spooky kitchen of her dreams (who I kidding, I did this for me too). Pretty much once I began to get everything I was wanting to in the Bullseye section, I just kept adding to it. THESE three small black buckets came in a set (all three for $3) and I used them for potion ingredients (Franken-Fingers, Witch Fingers, and Seer Eyeballs). I used small chalkboard labels that we already had to label them (you can buy various sizes on Amazon).
I never saw two kids enjoy something more than these three buckets and their potion ingredients. The witch fingers were a really big hit since they glow in the dark and the eyeballs are a close second since they bounce. The eyeballs I bought several bags of (obviously and also this just sounds bad once written out) and were purchased at the Dollar Tree and the witch and monster fingers were from Target’s Bullseye, and were also a $1.
I cannot even tell you how many of the lights (pictured below) I purchased from the Dollar Tree. I am shocked that they are only $1 as when Target releases the Bullseye verisions which are VERY similar, they are normally anywhere from $3 to $5. Not a big deal, but honestly the Dollar Tree lights glowed a lot brighter, and came in the same fun shapes of bats, pumpkins and skulls that I have seen Target’s Bullseye do in the past. Meaning that I was able to score even more and pay even less.
The orange ones were last minute and when I got the idea for it, I immediately had to go back for more. Why I didn’t think of making it look like there was a fire in the microwave and oven originally I do not know, but the mesh orange lights were perfect and created exactly the look I was going for. If your store still has them, grab them!
I had to look up the image on Dollar Tree since my Mamala had gone out to grab them and I needed to show her what they looked like since they had several orange versions, so just in case you need it too.
The battery pack is hidden on the sides but easy to access so when the microwave door is closed, you cannot see it.
I love the skull above. It is a Hyde & Eek find from Target. They were just putting them out, it changes all kinds of colors, and it was only $5. A complete and utter win and perfect for what I wanted.
Everything purchased was a mix of Hyde & Eek from Target, the Bullseye Playground and Dollar Tree. Honestly, our Dollar Tree is a little hard to park at, the parking lot is a mess, so I do not get over there a lot. My MIL had taken me to the one in Stuart and I am a complete and total convert, so I headed over to ours, took a couple of deep breaths, only honked at one person and scored some really great stuff. I blame part of the excessive I think my biggest downfall with any of this is that I do not ever have a plan, so I just buy a bunch of really great stuff get it home and then figure out what I am going to do with it. Then I have even bigger grandiose ideas or need more of something and then proceed to turn around and buy even more or multiples of said things (the orange fiery lights were my greatest idea yet) and using the excuse that everything is $1 justifies all my decisions (cue face palm emoji).
Dollar Treet had similar spooky fabric like the below, but this was longer and drapier and gave the kitchenmore of the webby/spooky vibe that I was looking for and for $5 I didn’t think I was off the mark. There are also other versions of this as well that came in other colors and other fabrics. Once everything started to pull together, I have to tell you that it was REALLY hard not to paint the kitchen black. Luckily, Christmas is around the corner and I was able to talk myself out of it.
Because the sign above turned out so well, I was also able to grab the other set of them that came in a package of three for $3 or you can just go to the link I provided above and buy the entirety for $12.
How I attach them…
THESE Command Strips are the best. They adhere really well, don’t strip the paint off and you can cut them in half or just use two strips. For the smaller sizes I didn’t want to waste them, so I just cut them in half.
My nail literally broke during this kitchen “remodel” so pay no mind to that.
I absolutely love how the signs turned out and the amazing tombstone chalkboard was another incredible Hyde & Eek find for only $10. Originally we were going to give a fun name to the kitchen, but after much deliberation, Sean and I opted for a play on words spooky menu. All that is us folks…no reaching out to the internet for that cleverness. I know you are amazed.
The stages of the Spooky Kitchen also known as how more became more…
I have had the Tinkerbell light-up pumpkin FOREVER. My best friend Sarah and I were in a Publix YEARS ago and they had two I think they were $4 each or something crazy and we grabbed them. At this point she had a kid…and I did not 😉
Nothing like getting some nice cold ice for your cauldron drink. Sidenote: his hair is wet….not greasy.
Make note of the oven prior to me wondering why I wasn’t buying all the orange lights.
I love that the both had to get ice for their cauldron. They have literally never played with that part of the kitchen EVER! So the re-discovery with a new look was a lot of fun to watch.
Then the magic of night-time happened
EV is her mama’s daughter and she loved all the intricacies of the little touches and seeing how the kitchen transformed at night time. All the audible gasps and “ooo Mama I love it’s” was everything I hoped for because I truly enjoyed doing something a little bit different with the Halloween decorating and making something that was more for them than anything. Especially since the Commodore is now of the age that he can enjoy it and understands how to play with a play kitchen and anything that EV loves is an automatic win for him.
The picture of what I thought was going to be the completed project…also known as how many orange lights are too many?! Asking for a friend…
I absolutely love the “Boo” marquee and my notifications were on forever before I was able to grab one. I was lucky in that I favorited it, because it is really difficult to search for online and my store had them, but it looked they they had been through the ringer, so I was happy to have gotten this one. I love the marquee so much, that I bought THIS “MERRY” one for the Christmas kitchen,
With the last finishing touches of the LED potion bottles that the Mamala was able to score over the last couple of days. The LED lights actually change color like the skull, they are so cool!
Next up…..all the crazy Halloween goodies I purchased this year alone and how we decorated the built-ins.
Anyone else decorate areas of their house for the kiddos?!
