Department 56 joins Enesco product family

Enesco, Inc., out of Illinois, has successfully completed the acquisition of our beloved Department 56 company. Enesco is the current owner of other well known specialty giftware lines such as Boyd's, Gund, Beatrix Potter, Jim Shore, and the also recently acquired Charming Tails. Enesco itself is also recently out of bankruptcy.

Enesco hired 75 of the Dept 56 staffers, but it is unknown what will come out of this purchase creatively. Enesco was quoted as saying “Department 56’s stable of core brands, enormously talented pool of individuals, expansive retail footprint and reputation are much-coveted assets in the gift industry.”

Enesco, LLC, is a global leader in the giftware and home and garden décor industries. Serving more than 44,000 customers worldwide, Enesco distributes products to a wide variety of specialty card and gift retailers, home décor boutiques, mass-market chains and direct mail retailers. With subsidiaries in the United Kingdom, France, Canada and Hong Kong, Enesco serves markets operating in Europe, the Americas, Australia and Asia. The company’s product lines include some of the world’s most recognized brands including Heartwood Creek® by Jim Shore, Foundations®, Our Name is Mud®, Gund®, Boyds®, Country Artists®, Walt Disney Classics Collection®, Disney Traditions™, Border Fine Arts ™, Cherished Teddies®, Bilston & Battersea Enamels®, and Lilliput Lane®, among others.

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Tomorrow is Labor Day, Next Up is Halloween!

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...

Lego in the news this week

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Fresh in my mailbox was a brand new issue of Village D-Lights , a magazine designed for village collecting enthusiasts, featuring great articles, display tips product information and much more. This edition's cover features the "Canton Tea Trading", a new piece for 2008 for Dickens' Village. Here is what you'll find in this (February/March) issue: * The cover story describes some of the 2008 introductions for Christmas in the City, Alpine Village and Dickens' Village. * A great feature on Randy Miller, president of the NCC . * A spectacular ad by D56 for the "American Diner". * Ms. LitTown writes about the new Department 56 showroom, which is being prepped for the 2008 convention. * A letter from Mrs. Dickens * Brandon Taylor's take on variations of some of the pieces * A Valentine's Day feature on themed pieces for that special day There's also many regular sections of the magazine: reader submissions, letter from the editor, trivia, di...

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