Tuesday — June 17th, 2008

   MAJOR SITE UPDATE: Hey everyone! The site has gotten an overhaul with a new home page, updated links and an entirely new section. The “Collector’s Stories” area is now up and running so please be sure to check it out. I hope it will be an enjoyable read for everyone. There should be additional collectors submitting stories soon, so check back for updates in the weeks to come.

   I have also expanded the Johanna Parker section on the Folk Art page to include more samples of her work.

Thursday — June 12th, 2008

   I have made a change to the ‘Greg Guedel’ section of the Folk Art page to include two new recent pieces. I am also announcing a new feature that will appear on the website soon…

   I am now working on adding a whole new section to the site that will feature the stories of Halloween collectors in their own words, telling about how they came to be involved with this fun hobby. Stay tuned as I hope to have it up and running by the end of June!

Monday — May 26th, 2008

   Happy Memorial Day everyone! I guess it's the official start of summer.

   Pictured below is an interesting 3D decoration that has recently come to my attention. This item was made by Hallmark in the 1960s and is quite striking. It’s essentially a “Pop-Up” Haunted House that has three dimensional layers inside the porch and windows, etc. The little ghosts and creatures peeking through the windows are very cool. There were two iterations of this piece: the “Second Empire” style shown here and another that was a “Country Style” house. This item is part of the collection of Tim Zane who reports that they command high prices on eBay when they come mint with their original envelopes. Hopefully someday I will be able to get one myself!

Sunday — May 18th, 2008

   Below is an image I reproduced in Adobe Illustrator CS2. Thanks to Illustrator’s amazing tracing features I was able to produce this vector art from a photograph with very little effort. The original design is from a set of old Hallmark placemats, probably from the 1970s. These are the type of Halloween graphics that—while not old—I find to be quite wonderful. One look at this and I am ready for Halloween! It’s hard to believe we are more than halfway through May already, and yet the Halloween season (which starts in mid-Sept for me) seems so far away.

Monday — May 12th, 2008

   MUSINGS: The listings on eBay lately have been a little lackluster, but one interesting group of items that popped up recently was three of the very rare Beistle hanging fringed banners shown on pages 61 and 62 of Claire Lavin’s first book, “Timeless Halloween Collectibles”. These were really great to see as the only other example I had ever witnessed were the ones from the Beistle archives in Claire’s book. As it turns out Lavin herself won two of them. These will likely never come up again.

   On another note, I am often somewhat amused and simultaneously irritated by those people who insist on listing non-Halloween items in the Vintage Halloween category on eBay. I’m not talking about the people who have a Halloween item that they don’t realize is not old…I’m talking about those items that have absolutely NOTHING to do with Halloween! Like landscape paintings of barns or the seemingly non-ending supply of “6 inch Peg Board Hooks” that mydealsdirect keeps listing. Could you please stop that?

Saturday — May 3rd, 2008

   Happy May everyone and good wishes for anyone celebrating Cinco De Mayo! I have made an update to the Folk Art page to include a recently purchased new sculpture from Johanna Parker. Her web sale on April 20th was quite a success! In addition to that, I have FINALLY (after promising back in December) added a link on the Links Page to Christopher Klingler’s web site. He’s a talented folk artist who paints Halloween Post Cards. Enjoy!