Our “Public Displays of Affection” (a.k.a. lawn greetings displays) aren’t just for birthdays, new babies, or anniversaries. Today we set up a fun display to help welcome shoppers to a Christmas open house.

Several WAHMs (work-at-home moms) held this open house for their customers.

I learned about the event through one of the WAHMs participating in the event. Kristi V. in Springfield runs two businesses from home — Friendship Bears and Southern Style Gourmet.

If you would like a fun, unusual way to welcome guests to your own open house or party, get in touch with us by visiting our main web site at AGreetingYard.com, calling us at (417) 823-3915 or shooting us an email at info@agreetingyard.com.

How crazy is this!

From Snopes.com (which is a great source to check on urban legends before you forward them to your entire address book and embarrass yourself):

Carson Williams of Mason, Ohio, who spent about three hours sequencing the 88 Light-O-Rama channels that control the 16,000 Christmas lights in his 2004 holiday lighting spectacular. The musical accompaniment is broadcast over a low-power radio station so that it is only audible to visitors tuned in to the correct frquency and doesn’t disturb the neighbors.

How fun is this? Some communities are latching on to the concept of yard cards and yard art, and using them to help celebrate the season.

In Bloomington, Ill., the Northwest Neighborhood Association is continuing a tradition that began in 2000. Neighbors are creating their own yard art. Prizes will be awarded Dec. 20.

Twila Braden, the association’s program chairwoman, was quoted in the Pentagraph newspaper:

“I just thought it was such a neat idea,” Braden said. “What a more wonderful way to give neighbors a greeting.”

The Robertscon County Times in Tennessee tells of a group of firemen who have been creating yard art as a fundraiser for Toys for Tots for about 15 years.

Kudos to these firefighters for their efforts. One firefighter cuts the yard art out of plywood with a jigsaw and the other firefighters paint them as time allows, according to the Robertson County Times.

And in Northwest Indiana, residents set up at Southgate Plaza in Homewood, Ind., to paint yard cards, a tradition for seven years in this community. Painters pay $95 to participate.

However, as an artist and a business owner, I’m concerned about a couple of quotes from these news stories.

From the firemen, regarding how they got started creating yard art:

Back then Yates saw a man selling similar items on the side of the road. He said he bought a reindeer, just to get the pattern.

And from the artists who paint their yard cards in the Indiana mall:

Artists chose Christmas cards with a picture they liked and had transparencies made of them. The transparencies were then put on an overhead projector and the images traced on to the large boards. The boards were then painted and will be illuminated with spotlights.

For all I know, the guy at the side of the road may have given the firefighters permission to use his designs, but here’s the part that alarms me. Over and over again, I’ve witness people do exactly this — buy someone’s yard art (or any other creative product, for that matter) and use it as their own pattern to reproduce it.

And the artists in Indiana may have some sort of special arrangement worked out with the greeting card companies that allows them to shine the card designs with a projector and recreate them.

But without permission from the owner of the copyright, it becomes copyright violation, folks, and that’s not cool.

It’s a frequent topic of conversation for the Lawn Greetings Association, where we try to mentor newbies to the industry and help everyone (newbies and old-timers) understand so they don’t cross that line and steal someone else’s intellectual property.

A lot of people simply don’t understand the concept. So many people have told me, “Well, I saw it on the Internet so it’s free, right?”

Ignorance is not bliss.

Reproducing someone else’s artwork (or another form of intellectual property) is the same as walking into a store and shoplifting.

Good to know that flamingos are making headlines in the world in spite of it being the season of the turkey.

Newsday magazine reports that in Kingston, New Hampshire, eight plastic flamingos were stolen from the yard of Debbie Barber two weeks ago.

Barber, who dresses up her flock for the holidays and even takes a pair on vacation with her, thought she’d never get them back.

Two flamingos were found on the side of the road, eight were dropped off at the police station, a woman drove 55 miles to bring Barber more flamingos, and two more were left on her porch.

She says it’s going to be a full-time job to make costumes for the new additions, which she plans to dress as reindeer and elves for Christmas.

The Washington Post is reporting something that we already knew to be true — Inflatables are big this year.

Here at AGreetingYard.com, not only do we rent our fabulous, fun displays for yards, we also sell these great inflatables (online only).

Snow globes are very popular this year. You’ve probably seen them set up in yards and in front of discount stores.

Before you lug one home from that big box store, compare the prices from our supplier. You might get a better deal, including shipping costs. And be sure to check back after the holidays because you might find some great clearance prices.

Right now, there are some great deals on Halloween items, perfect for stocking up and sticking in storage for a howlin’ good time next October.

Neighbors in the Hampden area of Baltimore made the news with their tradition of Christmas yard art, which they’ve dubbed their annual “Miracle on 34th Street.”

Both Newsday and The Baltimore Sun report that this neighborhood of rowhouses has gone all out for decorations for the past 20 years. There are even a few photos with the article.

Yard decorations on 34th Street this year include “armies of glowing plastic elves, rooftop Santas, pink flamingos, train sets and porches buried in teddy bears.”

“The old people enjoy it as much as the children,” said Sharon Burke, who climbed up on roofs yesterday with her husband, Donald, to hang lights. “When you come down here, it takes you out of the world’s troubles, and you go into a fantasy land.”

This neighborhood’s festive mood doesn’t end with Christmas. Oh, no!

On New Year’s Eve, Hosier and his neighbors lower a lighted plastic foam ball from the top of a telephone pole. In a spectacle they compare to the festivities in Times Square, Hosier runs out onto 34th Street wearing a giant diaper (dressed as baby New Year) and pops a bottle of champagne.

“New York don’t have nothin’ on Hampden,” Rodgers said.

How can you pass up the chance to be mentioned on Dr. Phil’s web site?

We’ve been busy over at the Lawn Greetings Association message forum, where I’m one of the founders of the community and one of three administrators.

We found out there was sort of a contest going on at the MomsTown web site, where Mary and Heather are always discovering great resources for work-at-home moms. They launched their blog on Oct. 14, 2005, and asked moms to send in votes for their favorite mom sites.

The mom sites with the most votes were being compiled to create a list on Dr. Phil’s web site. We didn’t find out about the contest until right before it was over, but we gave it a shot anyway. It was pretty disappointing not to make it onto the list on Dr. Phil’s site.

While our site isn’t totally devoted to moms, the majority of our members are moms who are running their businesses from home. So we figured we might as well take advantage of this opportunity to let more moms (and dads) know about our quickly growing industry.

Hope this doesn’t sound like sour grapes, but I know there are work-at-home mom sites out there with far more members, far more visitors, and far more legitemate, useful information than a few of the sites that did make it onto the list.

But my frown turned to a smile when I saw the results of the poll at MomsTown. We’re included in this mighty long list of web sites. It’s in alphabetical order and — there we are — lawn-greetings.com!

Flamingo flocking as a fundraiser is catching on across the country.

From a story in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, which states that 150 yards were victims of the migration.

A party was held at the home of the former director of Arts Live Theatre, the group benefiting from the funraiser, to celebrate the success of the migration. Dubbed “Meet the Flockers,” the party’s flamingo theme was carried out with pink flamingo centerpieces and pink table linens. Guests were served wine, hors d’oeuvres and a barbecue dinner.

Arts Live Theatre was founded 23 years ago and provides educational programs and performance opportunities for young actors in Northwest Arkansas.

One of the few unfortunate side effects of being in the lawn greetings business is the fact that you’re going to lose critters once in a while to theft and vandalism while the displays are set up in yards.

It seems that critter-napping occurs in the hallowed halls of academia — well, just outside of those hallowed halls — as well as residential areas.

Flamingos were repeatedly stolen from outside of the San Diego Super Computer Center, so an alarm system was installed.

Even with an alarm system, the flamingos were still a target for theft. The next time a thief made off with the pink birds, the alarm went off and a student went after him, resulting in an award being presented to the student.

What a fun surprise for us at AGreetingYard!

We were featured at a web site that’s known for being one of the most active, most informative, and most helpful sites for female entrepreneurs. These short features are third anniversary profiles to help celebrate the longevity of MyMommyBiz, one of my favorite web sites.

How time flies. Can’t believe I’ve been visiting the message board for so long.

Jen has established an amazing site for women who are in business or interested in going into business for themselves. Her main web site has tons of articles and links to resources for moms in business, and her message forums are active all the time.

If you’re thinking of starting a business from home, whether it’s for a little extra money or a full-time endeavor, visit Jen’s site and sign up for her e-newsletter. You’ll be impressed with her site, her newsletter and especially the message boards. So many message boards out there are full of spammers and scammers, so it’s always nice to find an online community where folks help each other out and get to know each other.