Friday, July 18, 2025

#13: The Fates for Summer 2025

Six witch faces inspired by Gibson with hands inspired by Dennison offer fortunes in Halloween collectible paper lantern.


Arriving for Summer 2025 there is a new Bindlegrim Halloween 12-side collapsible  German-style lantern (#13 - The Fates) seen most recently on @Bindlegrim (IG). This one will have an edition of seven - and unusually combines both lighting with a fortune game.

The lantern continues the Bindlegrim limited-edition series of industrial-method panels made of sturdy 2-ply museum board that reveals laser-print vellum panes - made in mind of no-heat LED lights or small battery candles.As for the fortunes there are six pre-told visions that slip into the bottom panes. These fortunes were penned by Bindlegrim under divine inspiration from The Fates - so he takes no responsibility for their snarky witchery!

Fortune teller's lantern features six basic human expressions - anger, happiness, disgust, surprise, fear, and sadness.
Bindlegrim 2025 vintage-style Halloween - The Fates (top).

A new vintage-style fortune game by Bindlegrim is combined with 12-sided German-style paper lantern decoration.
Bindlegrim 2025 vintage-style Halloween - The Fates (bottom).

By the way, about the imagery... while two of the faces were directly inspired by Gibson Art Co. (and givewn some artistic embellishments by Bindlegrim) Halloween collectors will notice six different expressions. Bindlegrim expanded upon her apparent acting repertoire to include the basic human expressions which some theorize to include anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise. (The original Gibson witch seems to have felt happiness and disgust).

Witch inspired by 1930's Gibson character design includes faces of disgust and fear.
Lantern detail: witch expressions of disgust and fear.

Witch inspired by 1930's Gibson character design includes faces of happiness and surprise.
Lantern detail: witch expressions of happiness and surprise.

Witch inspired by 1930's Gibson character design includes faces of sadness and anger.
Lantern detail: witch expressions of sadness and anger.

Vintage-style lantern (and combo fortune game) shown here hanging and lit up.
Bindlegrim lantern 2025 - #13 The Fates w/fortunes.


Bindlegrim is producing these right now - clearing up a few snags along the way - but expects these arriving soon for sale on the Bindlegrim etsy shop, likely along with some older Bindlegrim from the past which may be in stock still. Some of the older designs are seen on this blog and @bindlegrim on Instagram.

Working on label design in progress by Bindlegrim.
Working on label design for The Fates by Bindlegrim.


By the way, have you been keeping up with Bindlegrim these past couple of year? Bindlegrim recently created for THR some industrial style vintage products (below) based on 1940's faux stained glass window products. The new items are true to the general feel of vintage pieces, but cannot be mistaken as such (as with other Bindlegrim productions) due to a deliberate difference in size, imagery, color, and production.  Much like the lantern (above) the windows are made of 2-ply museum board but with in this case use colored tissue paper. For more images see THR's website or THR's online book shop (or even via Instagram @halloweenretrospecs), but note Bindledgrim is not selling these - they are free with a copy of THR's newest edition of research from its archive library publications on Etsy

Wintery type window with the warm glow of dual-side stained-glass paper projects by vintage-style Halloween artist Bindlegrim.
Dual-side faux stained glass paper window (2 shown) for THR.

Bindlegrim homage to Milton Bradley of the 1940's as seen here with the book The Halloween Retrospect Volume 4.
THR, V4 featuring an homage window by Bindlegrim

There are five books as of March 2025 for sale from THR's etsy book shop. Collect them all!
The Halloween Retrospect Vol 1,2,3,4 & Halloween Artifacxts.

Well, to close this blog entry, Bindlegrim notes this vintage-style artist has had the pleasure of being involved with Volume 1 and Volume 4 digests above, but is happy to return once again creating vintage-style decorations that bring olde Halloween to modern times. 

Thursday, April 10, 2025

Halloween Stained Glass Window

 

Bindlegrim vintage-style Halloween artist is back with an homage to stained glass windows from the 1940's created for the educational side of Milton Bradley,

Bindlegrim is very excited to be back exploring the warm glow of autumn light... with a special Halloween Window created as a one-time insert included only as a freebie with each copy of the new vintage Halloween collectibles guide The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 4. To start then, let's just begin this blog entry with various arty views of the windows, at times together with the book set as described via THR's etsy bookstore or recent blog entry "Vol 4 Halloween Retrospect."

Wintery type window with the warm glow of dual-side stained-glass paper projects by vintage-style Halloween artist Bindlegrim.
Dual-side faux stained glass paper window (2 shown) for THR.

New vintage Halloween collectibles guide for sale from The Halloween Retrospect research library includes book, crossword, and special window piece.
Not to scale: window shown (right) with book trio inset (left).

Assembled by hand, the specially designed stained-glass Halloween window (of museum board and tissue paper) are shown with book cover.
Faux stained glass windows assembled by hand are limited.

Close-up of cottage, cat, and Jack O'Lantern Boy cut from 2-ply museum board around matte colored tissue paper for stained glass effect.
Detail of matte color tissue paper that creates a warm glow.

Following is a description for these windows --- importantly noting once again that they are not-for-sale on their own, but only included as a free insert with copies of the March 2025 vintage Halloween collectibles guidebook series The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 4. (Etsy link here).

To begin, Bindlegrim designs are inspired by research pursued by THR that proves the originals to be vintage 1940's products created by Milton Bradley. Those originals hail from a time that included well-known art contributors (such as Louise D. Tessin) when the company is regularly involved in education (not only entertainment) and regularly publishing a magazine for educators called American Childhood. (Internet Archive link here). And while the new items are true to the general feel of vintage pieces, the modern Halloween Window cannot be mistaken as such, because Bindlegrim's version is deliberately different in size, imagery, color, and production method (and collages the four characters into one space). 

As for construction, the Bindlegrim versions are made of a thick 2-ply museum board frame which has been laser cut by the artist yet hand-assembled in the final steps. Still, the result is a doubled-sided decoration with colored tissue paper inside (very old school) which by result means either side is equally presentable as front or perhaps simultaneously from both sides at once. The tissue paper glows with a brilliant color while the framework remains strong and steady.

But again, this is part of a set (shown below) and Bindledgrim is not selling these - they are free with a copy of THR's newest edition of research from its archive library publications.

THR, V4 is shown here with book, crossword, and decoration.

A little bit about vintage Halloween collectibles guides are in order here, particularly the newest book that releases March 2025 by THR. If you are not familiar with THR publications - basically the archive library publishes research that utilizes many hundreds of primary sources from its collection - to better understand the history of ye olde holiday market. So far there have been four research digests and one art survey book (with more planned in future). The newest of these digests is The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 4 with book cover shown below (see THR's website or THR's online book shop).   

The cover art for this vintage Halloween collectibles reference book is from the 1940's Halloween Window Jack O'Lantern Boy originally created by Milton Bradley.
Cover art for The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 4 by THR publications.

While many preview images of the book are available THR's website or THR's online book shop (or even via Instagram @halloweenretrospecs) here are a few to make sure this blog entry is complete...  

A book preview of this vintage Halloween reference book shows cover and color images that include Tessin, Milton Bradley, Cook and Wilcox.
Page preview of The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 4.

Each THR archive library book comes with free extras - that can include puzzles, posters, decor, and more.
The Halloween Retrospect, V4 book, puzzle & decor.

Bindlegrim homage to Milton Bradley of the 1940's as seen here with the book The Halloween Retrospect Volume 4.
THR, V4 featuring an homage window by Bindlegrim

Well, to close this blog entry, Bindlegrim might advise that while this vintage-style artist has had the pleasure of being involved with Volume 1 and Volume 4 digests... THR since it's first release in June 2023 has five books now full of data or images about vintage Halloween collectibles of the past. They are great references for seasoned or new collectors of the hobby.... and here is an up-to-date image of those that the bookstore currently offers:

There are five books as of March 2025 for sale from THR's etsy book shop. Collect them all!
The Halloween Retrospect Vol 1,2,3,4 & Halloween Artifacxts.

Hope you enjoy and if you do, perhaps Bindlegrim will continue to explore such Halloween lighting projects in future!?!?


Tuesday, July 18, 2023

Project for THR Volume 1

Logo by Bindlegrim for The Halloween Retrospect

Okay, okay, so brushing past the fact that Bindlegrim made the mistake of waking up in the real world  (with things like stale coffee, office banter, and dangerous commutes) seems it all just put hin back to sleep, dreaming about the garden at Ichabod's Cottage to see if there's a pumpkin vine or two still crawling along the ground. And so this little project came to be...

First of all, for sure, Bindlegrim loves vintage Halloween! With so many direct influences from vintage objects on Bindlegrim's artwork for lanterns, postcards,  etc., there was destined to be some kind of project that involved that olde stuff more directly. Looks like this is it. An archive library, The Halloween Retrospect, houses a whole bunch of vintage information objects (including content from nearly 500 vintage catalogs) and decided to put together a small digest of research from those sources. Of course, that's going to need some work on the book (particularly the cover), and then there's the website, creating a logo, and on and on. But, well, it's all ready now, and here to share. 

So, Bindlegrim had fun at first revisiting some old ghouls from an early lantern, and found this witch face from the very first lantern prototype in 2011.

Original lantern artwork from 2011 by Bindlegrim
4 sides of Bindlegrim prototype lantern from 2011

Once in a layout, she took over and let the scene coalesce around her..., and here is the cover for the book which should be available around end of July and/or beginning of August. (It's ready but has a layout bug that needs fixing). 

Cover art by Bindlegrim for a vintage Halloween collectibles digest The Halloween Retrospect
Cover art for The Halloween Retrospect, Volume 1 by Bindlegrim

That offered a chance to do something more with the art, to offer the books a little extra something to go with them. From out of the cover art, four bookmark-tallies were created to accompany the mailer. Here they are below:

Four vintage-style bookmark tally cards included with copies of The Halloween Retrospect
Set of 4 bookmark-tallies, an extra with official copies of the book.
Vintage style Halloween bookmark tallies by Bindlegrim as an insert to official copies of The Halloween Retrospect

The book also comes with an 11"x17" fold out poster featuring a 1926 Halloween ad of products for schools (very fun stuff), and has some nice color and black and white illustrations across 32 pages. It's a 9"x6" publication, much like those old novelty catalogs, and is sure to have some good info for those into vintage Halloween collectibles. Here are some sneak peek images:

Vintage Halloween collectibles magazine to be printed in volumes, shown here with volume 1, poster, and Bindlegrim tallies
The Halloween Retrospect Vol 1, with poster and 4 tally cards.

Open page for The Halloween Retrospect, a vintage collectibles digest magazine with extras by Bindlegrim
The Halloween Retrospect Vol 1, with poster and 4 tally cards.

Oh, and last but not least, Bindlegrim put together a little website for the project: https://halloweenretrospect.com, and the logo below is a link there. Hope you enjoy the return of Bindlegrim, and the book...! 

Logo by Bindlegrim for The Halloween Retrospect

Sunday, September 4, 2016

Bindlegrim's 5th Hallowe'en Anniversay Box Set

Vintage-style art lanterns, books, and postcards for Halloween by artist Bindlegrim.

The 2016 Bindlegrim Summer Sale is still active into early Autumn with 25% off items on Bindlegoods, and a big thank-you to those cool ghouls following on facebook and/or twitter who participated in the two auctions that closed tonight (shown below).

12-sided German inspired lantern with vintage-style honeycomb roly-poly characters. 12-sided German inspired lantern with vintage-style honeycomb roly-poly characters.
Bats & Mice (left) with Spooksville Road (right) - auctions complete.

The final 2015 auction offers a pandora's box of past Bindlegrim work. It's a 5th Hallowe'en Anniversary (one-of-a-kind) Box Set with transparency logo, and filled with a selection of items from the past 5+ years (some pre-Bindlegrim) with at least one Artist Proof lantern never previously available.

Update Sept 5, 2016 (tentative content list at bottom of this post):

Vintage-style art lanterns, books, and postcards for Halloween by artist Bindlegrim.

Vintage-style art lanterns, books, and postcards for Halloween by artist Bindlegrim.

Vintage-style art lanterns, books, and postcards for Halloween by artist Bindlegrim.

Vintage-style art lanterns, books, and postcards for Halloween by artist Bindlegrim.

Tentative content list as of Sept 5, 2016:

Spook Box (2016) Content List Envelope (with card and Boo! transparency print)

The Pumpkin Dream, signed copy (orig. 2011) 
Untitled artist proof #2/3 box lantern, signed - (2011)
The Cornish Litany, carnivorous tree, signed postcard #14/25 (2011)
The Cornish Litany, chamber spooks, signed postcard #14/25 (2011)
The Cornish Litany, keyhole set of 12 postcards (2012)
Spooklights, Pendant Lamp Shade #1 (2014)
Spooklights, Candlestick Lamp Base, #1 (2014)
Spooklights, Candlestick Lamp Base, #2 (2014)
Spooklights Creature Votive (2014)
Beasties, candy basket version (2015)
Beasties, set  of 4 postcards (2015)
Dodeca lantern #10  Bats & Mice , signed limited edition (2015)
Dodeca lantern #11 Spooksville Road, signed limited edition (2015)

Additional Oddities:
Halloween Trunk Show 8, 9, & 10 postcards (2013-15)
Hallowe’en set of 9 greeting cards with 1 place holder, 1 place holder alternate (2004)
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