Father-Husband-Marketer-Geek

Hooked on Department 56 has a great article on tips for creating your halloween village . The article features tips and informative links on all of the wonderful and scary options for outfitting your decorative halloween villages, including haunted sounds, spooky lights, and flying witches. The story also features information about The 2008 Haunted Rails Engine & Coal Car, and Rickety Railroad Station, two of Department 56's Halloween village pieces created to mark the ten year anniversary of D56 Halloween. While the train itself is ceramic and non-working, you still get the feel of the haunted railroad. The also is not limited to just D56, as it also mentions Disney Villains from Hawthorne Village. An excerpt from the story: "In 1998, Department 56 introduced the first Halloween village collection. Department 56 Halloween Village features spooky castles, flying witches, skeletons, and gravediggers. Many of the buildings are lighted with fiber optic light effects, that fli

When you think christmas ornaments, you think Christopher Radko. Christopher Radko began designing and producing keepsake holiday ornaments, gifts and home decor items in 1986. Today he focuses on design and consulting services. Christopher Radko started out creating hand crafted glass Christmas ornaments that have become standards in many collections. The ornament firm was sold in 2005 but now he may be ready for a new venture. "While it's very early in the process, I can tell you that I'm working on some ideas that are rich in history, art and nature," Christopher says. "We all realize the importance of good friends in our lives and now that I've had a chance to visit with dear friends scattered across the world and hear from others via email, I've decided to develop products that can be used to honor friendships with elegance and in a unique and personal style." - Click here to read Christopher Radko's Blog - Click here to visit the corporate

  You may recall last year's list of halloween piece ideas - there was some pretty creative ideas. My wife was the creative source for "Smokey Bones Crematorium". This year we're keeping up the tradition by coming up with five more halloween buildings for Department 56. Bats in my Attic : it's an attic residence over a garage, and you are able to see bats hanging in there. You can also see an almost-hidden coffin in the corner. Spooky Bowl : This piece would recreate the look and feel of a football field on a graveyard setting, complete with skeletal quarterback. Jack's Pumpkin Painting Palace : This is an expansion of the Jack's Carving Studio, and features multiple creatively painted pumpkins surrounding a studio. Landing in The Scarefield : It's a landing strip with a half of an airplane and skeletal pilots. A crow sits on one of the wings, and grass grows along the sides. Mummies Curse Club : A table for four, where mummies play with a voodoo doll

Sad news...another store is closing for good. "All the Hoopla" in the Orlando Mall is closing 9/30/08. Currently they are selling everything at 40% off even new items. Their phone number is (407) 856-7767. It's a sad state which I know is indicative of the economy. Luxury items just aren't making the tight budgets anymore. Does any have any store openings to report? New websites? Let's have a round of good news. Related articles by Zemanta Man Cuts Gas Costs By Stealing 800 Gallons At A Time Inflation near target

One store is unfortunately closing and the other is holding a nice sale. In another sad sign that economic downturn has hit the luxury gift industry extremely hard, another Department 56 shop is closing. The Holly Loft in Killingworth, MA, is discounting 50% off Department 56 merchandise and 30% off everything else. The store is located on 163 Route 81 in Killingworth, CT , 06419 and the phone number is (860) 663-1166. I couldn't locate their website. Their going out of business sale has been going on for almost two months, so inventory is probably depleted. The other sale is 35% off on August 17th at the Myrtle Beach Department 56 store.

In some stunning and horrifying news from the weekend, Todd Bachman , formerly of Department 56 in the 1970s, was killed in Beijing while at a tourist site while attending the Olympics. Todd was the CEO of Bachman Floral in Minnesota. Bachman's Floral was the sponsor of the Bachman Gatherings (of D56 Collectors) in Minneapolis for many years. Here is a feed of the latest stories (you may need to visit the actual web page to view. Sometimes the feeds do not show up in email or newsreaders):

If any of you use iGoogle for your personal home page, you know you can bring lots of widgets and gadgets with dynamic information such as news, email, facebook or myspace messages, weather, maps, etc. One of the nice things is you can also customize the appearance of your page, and they offer a great header theme which shows a wintery village. You can click here to get the theme . Related articles by Zemanta Hints of iGoogle Turning Into Its Own Social Network

Discovered this news item late last week: Lenox Group Inc. Provides Update on Strategic Alternatives Review Process . An excerpt: " Lenox today announced that it had been unsuccessful in finding a buyer for the company (Department 56) as a whole, at an acceptable price, but continues to actively explore other strategic alternatives.... click here to read the complete story . My two cents -- In trying to consider potential buyers, how about: - the employees themselves - a large distributor such as Sears - a consortium of Dept 56 dealers - a group of funded collectors - an entertainment company such as Disney - a movie studio looking to cross-promote holiday movies such as Universal Studios Related articles by Zemanta Lenox trying to sell Department 56 Taking Advantage of Slow Ebay Auctions Wall Street Results for Department 56 (Lenox)

The Department 56 Webring regularly showcases some nice websites related to D56 and other collectibles. J&D Hobby is located in the Smoky Mountains. J&D was founded by avid Dept 56 collectors who enjoy building large Dept 56 displays and also American Civil War and WWII dioramas. They offer a large number of homemade accessories depicting as much realism as possible using a very hard plaster called Hydrostone. They have built accessories for not only Department 56 , but also model railroading, wartime dioramas, civil war soldiers, war gaming and dollhouse displays. Related articles by Zemanta Ken Burns new doc series for PBS The National Civil War Museum Lenox trying to sell Department 56 Celebrate independence with D56 & More What they're saying on Twitter about Department 56