I love Halloween, but that does not mean I have an all-inclusive attitude toward Halloween things.  I have drawn a definitive line at the cutesy stuff.  Halloween is meant to be scary or, at the very least, dark and mysterious.  I don’t want to look at Halloween things and think “Awww! How adorable!”

Unless you’re talking about little trick-or-treaters.  I had at least 3 Elsas come to my door last year, and I thought they were precious.

Anyway, I say this to tell you that my prejudice against the cute almost made me miss out on a pretty sweet deal.  A few years ago, my husband and I were at Lowe’s two days before Halloween, and they were clearancing out their merch to make way for Christmas stuff.  I only glanced at their dwindling selection.  One of the clearanced items was an adorable (read: nauseatingly cute) life-sized, animated witch, complete with pastel pink striped socks, cute little boots, and pink ribbon in her bodice and hat.  She was also wearing a brightly-colored tutu.

That’s right.  A tutu.

Needless to say, this didn’t sit well with me, and I began to move along, but my husband stopped me.  Like me, my husband can’t pass up a good deal, so he’s always on the lookout for a sale. He noticed a sign that said clearance items were an additional 75% off their already 50% marked down price.  That meant that this cutesy, originally $150 witch was now $20.

*Record Scratch*

Halloween prop-making was still new to me, so my first thought hadn’t been how to make this work.  Those thoughts were just, “Ew. Cute. No.” But after finding out about the crazy low price, I started thinking about how I could improve it.  I mean, $20 for a life-sized prop is a freakin’ amazing deal, and I couldn’t pass it up.  I knew I had craft paint to up the creep factor and a few black capes I could use to cover the skirt at home.  So $20 and some change later, we were loading that baby up in my car.

And this is what she looks like now.

Pretty sweet, right?  She’s been greeting trick-or-treaters at my front door for the past two years, and now I never turn down something at first site.