After Christmas Sale

[chris]

Just thought i would post to see if anybody got some great deals today? And if so what stores? :idea: Hope u had a great christmas!!!

[putrid]

I probably could have waited because it looks like no one's buying these. I got 5 boxes of those solid color plastic ornaments from Wal marts. One each of red,blue,green, gold and silver. If there's still good colors left I'll pick some more up when they go to 75%. The black ones would make great Halloween decorations. LOL

[Sickie Ickie]

I got a singing dog today that I'll hack and make into part of next years Christmas display. Got it at Walgreens for 1/2 off. Orig $20, marked to $10

[Just Whisper]

I decided I wasn't going shopping, not going to build any more props for my yard, and may not put them out next year. My god, isn't it Halloween yet? I hate Christmas. The first week of Nov is so lovely and then all of a sudden it's all over and you just feel so let down. I just couldn't go shopping, so I went to a movie instead. Wonder what I missed??? Well, hope everyone else found great bargains. I am going to go take some prosac now...jk.

[Candee]

We went to American Sales and bought out all the 32 in.candy cane blowmolds we could find, don't to excited yet, we only found 4 canes:( we also got a 36 in. santa face blowmold,:) and then we headed to Home Depot and bought lots and lots of lights! :exclaim: We are going to attempt to make a mega tree next year! The ice has finally melted here so we are going to go out and do storm cleanup. I'll be posting pictures of the damage from the storm later.

[chris]

I decided I wasn't going shopping, not going to build any more props for my yard, and may not put them out next year. My god, isn't it Halloween yet? I hate Christmas. The first week of Nov is so lovely and then all of a sudden it's all over and you just feel so let down. I just couldn't go shopping, so I went to a movie instead. Wonder what I missed??? Well, hope everyone else found great bargains. I am going to go take some prosac now...jk.

:)This year was my 1st time doing a Halloween display. Now that u said that im going to start early on my projects for Halloween. Im so glad i found this site u guys have some awesome ideas!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!!:twisted:

[theedwin]

I bought some LED lights, had to really dig to find them as it seems like they took most of them off the shelves right after Christmas.

I bought 5 animated Reindeer (just for the motors) Cheaper than on the website, and no shipping and handling. Well, I have to handle them...

I was looking at the Gemmy animated stuff, but didn't buy any. There are SO MANY left! I will wait and see if I can hold out on many of them for the 75% or 90% sales. (Ideas galore about HACKING them like Sickie said!)

I was thinking about buying a bunch of those rope lights, but they are all orange (Big Lots) Good for Halloween, but I just don't know what I would use them for...

Edwin

[Sickie Ickie]

Orange rope lights? Could be used as a "fire" source.

[zippo1guy]

I use yellow and orange in my display...breaks up the traditional colors.

[chris]

Lowes has 75 percent off xmas stuff, only thing i could get my hands on was white lights 0.60 box.

[Sickie Ickie]

Kmart has 50% off right now.

Dollar Tree has 50% off Christmas stuff, too. I saw the 10 light set and was thinking about getting some. If nothing else, the battery boxes are for D batteries, and they cost about $3 ea at radioshack. Then the lights could be used for other things.

[Just Whisper]

Our Lowes had their 50% off sales a week and a half before Christmas. Wish I had known about it.
I saw the 10 light set and was thinking about getting some. If nothing else, the battery boxes are for D batteries, and they cost about $3 ea at radioshack.
Those 10 light sets for $1.00 are not worth the dollar. I bought some at Halloween to use to make spot lights, and I had bad luck(They may be C size, now that i think about it). The case that holds the batteries is very poorly made. It took me forever to get the batteries to fit in the case and when I finally forced them in the case broke in half. It is just barely glued together. Sometimes you really do get what you pay for.

[Sickie Ickie]

Thanks for the heads up, whisper. Maybe I'll buy one and see how sturdy it is before any more.

[Sickie Ickie]

I forgot to mention that also at Kmart, the automation light box is 50% off.

That's down from around $90 to about $45.

[BobbyDole]

I found some great deals on lights for next year at christmasworld.com
Really nice people, I called in and they gave me a discount code to use: whitechristmas. I got the LED mini lights so I can save some money on my power bill next christmas. They also had other stuff like wreaths and christmas trees and storage bags. Looks like a good after Christmas sale!

[putrid]

I keep going back to Wal marts and checking on there prices. Nobody's buying those plastic ornaments. When they go to 75% I'm going to pic up more. Be great for wreaths and garlands.

[chris]

Putrid, i went there got 4 boxs of red trying also to wait 4 better deal. Nobody here buying them ether.

[Just Whisper]

I was at a WalGreens today and saw 50 % off sign, stopped and looked on the Christmas isle, saw those little 2' fiber optic trees. So I asked if they were also half price (They were originally $15.). The girl said "They are three ninety five". I asked her to repeat it cause I was sure I misheard her. "Three ninety five". "One more time please", I asked. She smiled, laughed, and said slowly "They are three dollars and ninety five cents each". I bought all four of them. Woo Hoo!! Maybe I'll try some more tomorrow (we have about 15 of them around here). This after Christmas shopping might not be too bad after all. LOL

[Sickie Ickie]

Great tip, Whisper! I'll check mine out as well.

[EnlightenedGrinch]

My local Walgreen's had all Christmas marked 75% off today. I bought some of those LED lights that are orange for Halloween, then multi-color for Xmas. $3.74 a box.

[putrid]

Wal marts finally dropped to 75% off! Got me a load of plastic ornaments. Forgot to pick up more silver. If I get two more boxes of silver I'll have 456. Most of which are going on the snow seen tree and wreath. If I have some left over I might do a 9 ft evergreen garland up with them as well. The smaller ones will be for a table top tree.

http://www.christmasfanclub.com/picture.php?albumid=8&pictureid=488

Ya I know these plastic ornaments cost more than the glass ones. But I'll be able to store the tree and wreath with them wired in place without worrying about breakage.

Also bought one of ther white LED tree top stars. Don't bother. This thing flashes between green and perple lights. Been nice if it was white.

[theedwin]

Hello All!

I purchased TOO MUCH!

Anyways... I picked up 2 of the Gemmy Light Shows at Wal mart at half price. (never thought they would even have one!) I bought a bunch of "Buffalo Snow" since I use that alot. I picked up a BUNCH of LED lights at K-Mart (still only half off, but they last forever if taken care of). K-Mart also had one of those chair back massagers that you strap to any chair, at half off, got one of those too and am so happy I did! SO RELAXING!!!!!:)

One of my employees told me that "Family Dollar" had the Douglas Fir Talking Tree. I went NUTS when she told me that, and well, I picked up several of those for only $4 apiece. I used the older versions in my lobby display this year and had several offers to buy them. I may be able to make a few bucks off of them!!!! Ha Ha! They are a bit smaller than the late 90's model, but they are still cute as "Heck"!

I should stop spending, but I still have a couple of gift cards lying around...:)

Edwin

[Sickie Ickie]

Family dollar has them? I 'll have to check it out! We hack them a lot for Halloween stuff...and now maybe Christmas stuff...

[putrid]

Went back to Wal marts and picked up a few more boxes of plastic ornaments. I was surprised to see out of the regular sized balls all the turquoise and all but 2 boxes of the purple were gone . Got 2 more boxes of silver and one of the dark red. Now I've got 504 plastic ornaments in all. Should be enough..?....LOL

[Sickie Ickie]

Never enough, Putrid!

[Just Whisper]

Since I was already in WalMart and since it was 75% off, I decided to look at what they had. Got a $25 iced penguin for $6. Several stuffed animals for 25cents each for my ferris wheel, and pointsetta sticks (floral arrangement stuff) for 25 cents also. Got several amarillas for $2.00 each. The one we have grew humongous and bloomed in about one month. So beautiful. Mostly they were sold out of the good stuff. I bought some tree ornaments at KMart and Target yesterday for 50%. I decided I probably have enough decor. I came to this realization when laying in bed thursday, it occurred to me I never put out my pretty ice reindeer or my big bear on the pine tree, 2 of my favs. Took me 3 days to remember where I had stored them. LOL

[putrid]

Decided to look around and see what was left where. Most places were picked clean. A few had already packed up the Christmas section. But I didn't come home empty. I picked up two outdoor 3 outlet units with the timers and light scensor for 75% off. If I get enough stuff for the yard I'll run one cord from the back half of the house. I'll unplug my sump pump and run one from there too. Who needs a dry basement. LOL

[theedwin]

Sickie Ickie,

If you could let me know HOW you hack the Dougies, I would greatly appreciate that!

I have checked most of the "hacks" on the different forums but have yet to find one that will work for me.

I have a few older ones (dougies) that have the "mic" input, and I am thinking about using that next year as they have several outputs if you count them right. (blinking eyes, moving mouth, sound, etc etc)

I was thinking about hacking one, using the adapter that came with it and powering the "several" that I recently purchased to become some sort of Christmas tree choir....

BUT.... 7 volts to 4.5 volts won't let the new ones last very long... (It will be fun tho!)

Edwin

[theedwin]

Putrid,

The Wal-Mart I went to today had Pallet after Pallet after Pallet FULL of the plastic ornaments you posted a picture of. (Someone over spent!) I am beginning to wonder if they are sending all of the stuff from all of the other Wal-Marts to a single Wal-Mart to get rid of it...

Edwin

[Sickie Ickie]

Edwin, I meant we as haunters, not we as in me. LOL

HOWEVER, I have a new hack that *should work* with the tree, too. Are you familiar with the cheap lightning machine box? Well, this http://www.ltdcommodities.com/home/catalog/cat_item_pg.asp?G=600&P=330&Rec=20&Ntt=light&N=37&Nao=0&R=443420-5FX9---1 is basically the same thing for under $10. The hack incorporates this.

Take the wires leading to the mouth motor of your prop and chop them next to the board. (leave a few inches on the board in case you ever want to hook them back up.)

Chop the end of the adapter that you plug into your prop and splice it onto the mouth motor wires. (pos to pos, neg to neg).

Plug the adapter into the effects machine, and then plug a sound source into the audio side of the machine. Instant lipsinc. My kind of hack. :) The downside to this is I'm not sure what to do with the eyes. I'm thinking the same hack only with a 2nd machine only for the eyes, a random audio rhythm, and having the speaker disconnected.

You should be able to run a chorus line by splicing multiple wires from your one adapter to all the trees considering the volts will remain the same since the hack is based from a 120vAC through your adapter.

Monsterlist and hauntproject have different suggestions for hacks as well.

Edit: PS Do this at your own risk as I am not a qualified electrician or have professional knowledge of electrical circuits. What may work for me, may not work for you.

[zippo1guy]

I happened to luck out on Friday morning, as my local Wallyworld was discounting to 75% off. Ended up with boxes and boxes of lights, cords, led branches and a couple of blow up 8' snowmen at $9 a piece. Ended up with an overflowing cart and a scolding from the wife for under $100 bucks. Wish they had more snowmen, could have made an army!

[Sickie Ickie]

Looks like you made out!

Did you see the collections thread, zippo?

[Val]

I was in the Crystal Lake, IL. Hobby Lobby today and all Christmas stuff is marked down 80%. I was surprised to see 22' outdoor green extensions cords for $2.40 each! I picked up 16 of them, just enough for another controller. The 100 count incandescent white mini's on white wire are .60 (reg. 2.99) each. The had tons of lights, ornaments, trees, wrapping paper and all that good stuff left.

[Sickie Ickie]

Nice to know! Unfortunately no HL by me.

[Sickie Ickie]

stopped in at the local CVS onthe way to work today. Animated wireframe reindeer were 75% off! Marked down from $20 to $4.99.

Needless to say,
I bought 'em out. :D (only 2 left and the display anyway. so 3 altogether. )

[Just Whisper]

Good catch on the deer Bryce. Most everything around here has been wiped out since 2 days after Christmas, some even before. You can still buy trees, tree ornaments, and paper. that's about it. In fact, I was really disappointed to see that many of the stores around here didn't carry much stuff for Christmas at all. Like Sams and WalMart. I use to love to go to both stores and see the huge displays they had set up with blowups, and standups, and pop ups and any other kind of display ups. LOL Now it's mostly trees, ornaments, and small stuff like indoor decor. Our Sams had one very small isle with some big wreaths, a few lights, some HUGE tree ornaments, and the Gemmy light show. It all seemed a very strange array.

[Sickie Ickie]

Bought out two cases of spray frost from Walmart today. .25 ea. x 23 cans = ~$6.00

[chris]

^ Best time to shop I think.

[Sickie Ickie]

Absolutely!

[chris]

I dont know if I said this back in January, but I scored 16 pink Christmas trees for about a $1.50 each. I will be adding them to my display this year.

[Sickie Ickie]

sweet! Could double for valentine's day. :D

[SantaAllen]

I don't think I mentioned it but in Feb I bought a back up Santa Claus suit that was 75% off. Really nice to have a backup suit, you never know when someone will spill something on Santa Claus.

[chris]

^ Thats a great score SantaAllen!

[Sickie Ickie]

I love saving moola SCA!