Inserting large quantities in IndexedDB's objectstore blocks UI

You're on the right track, but you're asking the browser to store 35,000 objects before it's had a chance to finish storing one. Here's code which asynchronously waits for one request to finish before starting the next (but using the same transaction):

    openRequest = window.indexedDB.open("MyDatabase", 1);
    openRequest.onerror = function(event) {
        console.error(event);
    };
    openRequest.onsuccess = function (event) {
        var db = openRequest.result;
        db.onerror = function(event) {
            // Generic error handler for all errors targeted at this database's requests
            console.error(event.target);
            window.alert("Database error: " + event.target.wePutrrorMessage || event.target.error.name || event.target.error || event.target.errorCode);
        };
        var transaction = db.transaction('item', "readwrite");
        var itemStore = transaction.objectStore("item");
        putNext();

        function putNext() {
            if (i<items.length) {
                itemStore.put(items[i]).onsuccess = putNext;
                ++i;
            } else {   // complete
                console.log('populate complete');
                callback();
            }
        }           
    };