Alright! First up on the Halloween chopping block is Joann’s!
Keep in mind with all these “reviews”, they are less reviews and more my personal taste opinions about what I liked. I’m a snob, remember. Also, these stores may not have everything in so I’m kinda judging by what I’ve seen in store and a bit online.
This is more like first impressions kinda blog.
I will say that Joann’s is pretty damn solid this year. Usually there’s a lot of kitsch decor I have to sift through in stores and I’ll find a few treasures, especially in Joann’s sort of demographic, but I have to hand it to them. They did good. They do have a separate “Fall” decor section which is more along the lines of farming and burlap and all that normal stuff, but the Halloween section is what we’re focusing on.
Wait tho. Before we really start, I need to say that they got some cute ass reusable bags. Like first thing I spot in the store are these bags and man, I love them. Go buy them.
We’re going to focus on 4 Sections of their decor: Outdoor, Indoor, Crafts, and Misc.
Outdoor section first!
Again, Joann’s surprised me because they had a good selection of doormats. Their mats are adorable and come in different styles from like a die cut natural mat to the traditional rectangle coir mats and then that kinda rubbery thin material. They also have some cloth ones for indoors but they were mostly just stripes. But I wanted pretty much all of them.
Me being me, the die cut Pumpkin and Cat mats were at the top of my list with this half-circle Happy Halloween being right up there! I think I liked the designs of the natural mats a bit more because the rubber ones felt a bit more simple and cartoony. They were very basic but they are cheaper so that makes sense.
For yard decorations, they had the standard skeletons, some stake witch arms to make it look like they were reaching out the ground, some nice spiderwebs and then the normal clingy gets-everywhere spiderwebs, and a few tombstones. The standout things were the yard stakes (which I stupidly didn’t take pictures of).
I want that candy corn stake so bad. The candy corns are actually a thick wood and are fairly big, which means it’s a bit pricey regularly priced, but maaaaaaaaaan. It’s so cute with the stars and the bats.
I’m not usually a big fan of directional arrow signs but I think because this one is simple and not 20 different fonts, I’m a fan of it and then just the cute little pumpkin patch stakes are so classic.
They also had this GIANT skull planter and if I hadn’t planted all my pumpkins I’d be using that. It is huge in person but anything growing from it would look so cool. And then I love the little three stack LED wooden porch sitter pumpkins. They have a similar design to the other pumpkins Joann’s has been using and I think they’re super adorable. And who can resist a nice broom for your door.
Now to Indoor!
I love Joann’s indoor signs. This Trick or treat bat sign and the moon one next to it were my favs. They didn’t break a lot of the rules I have for Halloween decor and pretty much all the signs were very tasteful and I could imagine in my home.
Their pumpkins and spooky decorations were absolutely wonderful and creative. The pumpkins with the teeth were my favorite and the eye pumpkin is so creepy but very well crafted! And any of the pumpkins pair really well with the tiny headless bodies so you can come up with some really cool stuff.
Now they do suffer from the “make everything a skeleton” decor problem with a whole section of bones and skeletons that don’t make any sense. There’s a lot that if you were going with a cheesy funny house, then you’re covered. But it’s not for me. The decorated and multicolored skulls were pretty neat but as weird as it sounds, I tend not to decoration with human skulls that much?
Yeah, it sounds weird. Much weirder when I say I still to animal skulls. Moving on.
Before I move on to crafts, I’m gonna mention their wreaths. They have some cuuuuuute wreaths and it makes me sad that they cost so much. I get it, they’re pre-made so you don’t have to. But the designs were very cute and it was cool to get ideas for potentially making your own. Now onto crafts.
Joann’s is a craft store so duh, crafts, but they had everything for making Halloween bouquets, your own wreaths, kids crafts, baking, paint it yourselves, everything.
Note: I’ve gone to Joann’s a lot lately because I may have bought all of their coffin trays to make custom paintings. I apologize to the Lubbock region but cross your fingers they get more cause they gone now.
Some neat things I saw were wooden cutouts you could paint, a well crafted ceramic haunted house that lit up, and a giant paintable ceramic torso! Yeah, you can paint a dead body. Kinda cool.
They also had a Halloween gingerbread house kit and a COFFIN gingerbread kit along with some cookies cutters, molds, and Halloween kitchenware.
Because they are mostly a fabric store, they do have a great range of Halloween fabrics. There are some really good designs for all different types along with a few licensed ones and fabric for like blankets and things. They also have really nice ribbons and trims which I really wish I had any use for besides just hoarding.
There are a lot of different things you can make with their craft section so if you’re more of a DIY person, I highly recommend browsing everything!
Last, miscellaneous things!
They’ve got socks! They’ve got jewelry pendant things. They’ve got pet costumes! They’ve got people costume accessories! There’s a lot of little knick-knacks including candy and soaps that you wouldn’t necessarily think but it was pretty fun to browse and see what odd thing the store may have. They’ve also got a few really nice candles too.
Overall, I really liked Joann’s and found a lot more stuff here than I expected would fit my lists. I need 5 doors to my house so I can have a mat for each. And again, apologies for the coffin trays. But I made them cool??
Posting in a little gallery all the pictures I took. I also recommend checking out their website because there’s quite a few things we haven’t gotten in yet and may not get in. So if you spot something, order it to the store! There’s some dish drying mats I’m eyeing….
Next, should I cover Tuesday Morning or Michael’s? Let me know!
-Sam <3
