Father-Husband-Marketer-Geek

Saturday night my wife and I hosted our annual pumpkin carving party in our space-challenged condo. We had 24 adults and 9 kids over, and everyone got to carve a pumpkin and check out our Department 56 Snow Village displays. We didn't create anything elaborate as far as landscaping goes, but the displays still came out wonderful, as both parents and their kids really appreciated the spooky spirit. We gave out prizes for best carved pumpkin, scariest carved pumpkin and cutest carved pumpkin. It's really a fun party and a good alternative to the traditional halloween costume party. You can create fun treats like mummy dogs (hot dogs wrapped in dough with capers for eyes), pumpkin muffins (use two pans of pumpkin bundt molds), and of course, a good amount of assorted candies and scary shaped cookies. For the kids, you can get Mr. PotatoHead-like face parts to place on the pumpkins instead of giving them carving utensils. You can also opt for markers or paints -- but I'm not re...

We ended up with way more pieces than we thought we had - thus, we had to build three vignettes this year instead of two. Of course, we have the Halloween Amusement park, well documented in this blog, with the "Scaredy Cat Ferris Wheel", "Spinning Pumpkins", "Swinging Ghoulies", "Halloween Dance", "Witch Rides", "Halloween Water Tower", "Mummy Mischief" and accessories such as "Resting My Bones", "Halloween Outhouse" and the "Halloween Fall Festival" sign. I'll post some pictures once my wife finishes the layouts and decor. My job is to pull the pieces out of the boxes and place them, and hers is to finish the design. We also have a vignette on our bar, anchored by "Jack's Pumpkin Carving Studio". From left to right I added "Creative Carvings", the "Dead End Motel" and the "Black Cat Diner." Although it doesn't scale well, we added the ...

We're excited to announce the first contest this blog has ever thrown! Beginning now, we are accepting photo submissions of your halloween displays. On October 21, we will select the best overall display photo and the winner will receive a t-shirt which is custom printed with the display right on it. Simply email your photo and contact info and we will consider you entered. The top 5 will be included in the post which announces the winner. The winning photo will be creative, clear and of course, contain plenty of halloween pieces from Department 56. This can include Original Snow Village Halloween, All Hallows' Eve, Sleepy Hollow, or Dept56 halloween decoratives or Halloween Krinkles. Good luck! Below are some of the well done Halloween photos we've come across: This photo, titled Jean's 2005 Halloween is from the Yahoo! Department 56 Collectors group . They have many photos you can browse. It's a very dedicated and active discussion group. Building New Worlds is ...