Haunter Hoarder

A sauce jar turned Witch's Jar and
former libation & oil bottles create a
creepy corner

Sigh, the Most Wonderful Time of the Year has passed and the post euphoria melancholy begins to set in.  The antidote?  Planning for next year!

Repurposing everyday items falls perfectly in my cheap & easy decorating philosophy.  Stockpiling these empty or used household items keeps the DIY supply high and always at the ready when inspiration hits and time allows for prop making.  Check out this list of items and how to use them in your haunt.


Tin Cans - Hold onto the cans from everything from coffee to baked beans to acquire an assortment of sizes.  Pierce a design in with a hammer and nail and then rust them up with a salt & vinegar rusting solution for fantastic luminaries.  Add a creepy label to a rusted can to stock an apothecary.  Add some rusted cans to a Cabin in the Woods haunt to give it an "abandoned, no help is coming" feeling.  Note: be sure to hammer down any sharp edges leftover from removing the lid.

Baked beans...swirly luminaria

Glass Jars - Gonna need glass jars for Witch's Jars.  Large pickle jars are fantastic as well as supersized jars of spaghetti sauce.  Use smaller jars like olive & pesto jars and add labels for an apothecary.  I love Oui Yogurt jars for tea lights sized holders.  Ball sells metal tops with hangers that fit some wide mouth jars allowing you to create hanging lanterns for a cemetery, Pirate Ship, or Priestess Shack.

Oui Yogurt jars (2nd from left) have
a lovely shape

Glass bottles - Wine, olive oil & liquor bottles and their unique shapes add visual interest to an apothecary.  Remove the labels and add your own and wrap raffia around the necks.  Or leave the labels, age them and add to a Haunted House or Pirate Ship.  Hold onto the corks so they can be placed back in to appear still full of vintage libations.  Cider bottles are perfect for Pirate haunts or Cabin in the woods.  Stain the inside of clear bottles with Modge Podge dyed with food coloring and bake for 1 hour at 200 degrees for a cool stained glass look.

Tin Containers - Mints, tea, spices, hot chocolate; tin containers can be rusted or simply add a label and added to a Haunted House, apothecary, Pirate Ship or Cabin in the Woods.

Medicine bottles - Remove labels and use a glue gun to write the contents on the side.  Paint with silver, gold or bronze paint and distress to create potion ingredient bottles for an apothecary.

Flowers/Bouquets - If you're fortunate to get flowers show them new appreciation by adding them to a haunt.  Hang upside down to dry after enjoying their fresh blossoms.  Add to an apothecary, Shack or place in a aged vase (use the one it came in!) in a Haunted House display.

Vases/Gift Baskets - Speaking of flowers, vases are more than glass.  Metal, birch, wood, baskets, and more.  Hold onto the cool one's and toss the tacky to add to Pirate Ships, Haunted Houses, Swamp Shacks, Cabins in the Woods...honestly, they can find a home just about anywhere.  The wood box shaped one's can be turned on their sides, stacked and glued together to create a shadow or storage box display.  Gift baskets can be added to Witch's Lairs, Swamp Shacks, Haunted Houses, Undertakers, Tombs/Crypts and more.

Rust this pail up with a salt & vinegar solution

Naturals are perfect for a Witch's Lair or Swamp Shack

Stack these on their side to create a multi-compartment display

Fill with dried fruit or skulls. Age the wood with an
SOS Pad/Steel Wool solution and metal band with a
salt & vinegar solution.

Food & supplies for the Pharaoh in the afterlife were stored in
baskets not too dissimilar to these.

Bottle Caps - Make a hole and add to a mobile or create a wind chime.  Place in the eye sockets of a fake skull.

Ribbon/Yarn/String - This can get overwhelming so be sure to only hold onto the good stuff.  Wrapping these days is so "cool" it often means twine, burlap & yard.  The pieces may not always be big, but you only need a little to wrap the neck of a bottle or to hang a mobile.

362 days till Halloween....

Bargain Boo: Haggling for Horror

eBay score

Any which way I can save a penny or dollar, I'm all in.  Repurposing common household items and tools, great deals at thrift stores, eBay's massive market place or my personal favorite, free items either left curbside or found in nature all enable us to build out our haunts without going broke.

You can take the savings even further if you're willing to haggle.  I know it can make some people uncomfortable.  It's not really in our nature to enjoying hearing "no" and often we're concerned about insulting people.  I've got to tell you, the more I haggle the better it gets.  There are opportunities to negotiate better prices in ways you may not have realized as well as the means to improve your odds sometimes right under our noses.

Use these tips for more than just Halloween shopping, too.  Although other than grocery shopping, what kind of shopping is there?

eBay - I buy and sell a lot on eBay so I'm giving this advice not just as a buyer, but a seller.

First off, make good use of the "Make an Offer" feature if the listing is open to it.  As a seller, we want to sell stuff and if we've said we're open to offers, we mean it!  Make us an offer!  If we've had the item awhile, we're likely to jump at the chance to finally get whatever it is out of our house.

Which brings me to "View all revisions."  All listings have an area that allows you to see revisions.  It's found in the Description and is highlighted blue.  In the pic below it's purple because I've selected it, I wanted to be sure I had found us a good example.

This handy feature holds the key: data.  Here you're going to see how long the item has been up, what the seller changed, if the price dropped, by how much, how often, etc.  Has the item been up for ages, dropping steadily in price?  If so there's a pretty good chance the seller wants it gone and will accept a low offer.  So let's see what our example has been up to:

Okay, so this item hasn't been up long, but they've changed the Buy It Now Price a lot.  Also, they are currently offering it at a 42% off.  So I'm going to make an offer that is just slightly under that price.  They clearly want it gone but given they're promoting a discount, they likely are close to their low end limit of what they'll accept.  I'll let you know how I do.  UPDATE:  Not bad, wound up at 48% off original list price.  The free shipping meant they weren't willing to go lower. I've done better but still, not bad.  I'm happy with the price I paid total for the item and that's all that matters.

I've seen items up for over a year and offered half of what they had it listed for.  Wouldn't have been able to afford my wedding if I hadn't!  Then turned around and resold most all of it on eBay again and turned a small profit.

On that front - look for items that might need a bit of work, too.  Unpolished silver often sells for far less than polished as it just doesn't present well in pictures.

Make sure you are keeping your shipping costs in mind when making an offer.  You don't want to find yourself happy with the purchase price only to get dinged with shipping costs.

Best. Craigslist. Find. Ever

Craigslist - I could be wrong but I pretty much assume anyone using Craigslist understands that it's all about the haggle.  I don't presume to ever get paid what I listed something for and likewise, never simply just pay what someone is asking.  So of all places to not feel weird haggling it's Craigslist.

When someone is having a hard time getting rid of an item, the tend not to remove previous listing but simply post a new one, lowering the price.  If you find something you like, scroll back through the results to see if it's been listed before and take note of the time passed and price drop.  I then offer them whatever price they would be at if they had to post it 2, even 3, more times and we usually wind up somewhere in the middle.

For example, say the listing started at $60 and every 5-6 days they've dropped the price $5.  It's now been 15-18 days and it's listed at $45.  Another 10 days they'd be at $35 so I offer $25 or $30.  When things sit there for a while, folks start to worry it won't sell at all and most sellers on Craiglist are there because they're trying to get rid of stuff and/or make quick cash.


Secondhand Stores, Yard Sales, etc - These two techniques work in kitchen supply stores as well.

Dust equals discount in my book.  Dust means it's been sitting there.  A while.  You can see it, they can see it, everyone knows what's going on.   We'd practically be doing them a favor to take this thing out of their store for them.  Make an offer!  Heck even point out that it's so dusty they must have forgotten they even had it.

Buy a lot, pay less.  A "lot" as in a group of stuff.  Gather up what you think you may want, do some quick math and offer less.  To increase the odds of victory even more, offer a nice round number that makes life easier for everyone.   If the total adds up to $24, offer $20.  If it's $26, offer $20.  People seem to like $20's by the way.  $20, $40, $60.  They know you likely have exact change and they don't have to make change.  Even if it's $75 offer $60.  You've got nothing to lose except savings.

Be willing to let things go.  If they don't take the bait at first, start sliding things aside you could live without and see if you can get them to come back to the table.

My kitchen store is a fan of "lots."  They've given me discounts without even asking simply to make their lives easier.  So gather up some dusty Arabic Tea Pots and cake stands and start making some deals!


10 Days till Halloween...