Papier Mache Santas

This little guy was one of my favorite santas.  I have misplaced him or sold him, not sure which but anyway he's gone.  I could try to make another but it's not easy to do even with practice.  Since we work without molds....it's kinda like what you see is what you sometimes get.

In a few days Faye & Marge will begin experimenting with some new products and begin the creation process again.  Papier Mache is in our blood now after nearly twenty years and although we have taken a few hiatus' we will never give it up.  So please stay in touch to see what we come up with.  If you have any request's we accept special orders and can create a special gift for your favorite friends' profession, hobby, or interests.  Let us know what you want.  In this image you see a wine lovers delight.

Today's LoveKins

Look What I Found

Oh my gosh, look what I found hiding in my mother's closet.  She told me to take him home so after leaving him there for a couple of weeks, I brought him home so I could make another.  Haven't done that yet but I wanted to share him here anyway.  This is what happens when you don't take photos of everything you make!  And, I mean everything!!!! 

 

I had totally forgotten this guy.  I'm so glad I gave him to my mother because he ended up back with me and now I will probably make a couple more of this design because I do love the smile on this one a lot!  These photos were taken with my cell phone so they're not the best but I still had to post them. 

 

I also had some time this morning.  The grands are sleeping in.....so I am tiptoeing around and had time to read the beginning of this blog and realized that I never quite got around to finishing the story of how Marge and I got started.  That's the one thing about blogs, you are always reading from the end.  LOL  So I really should tell the rest of the story but not this time.  I will leave that for tomorrow. 

Happy 4th of July USA!

Happy 4th of July!  

I ran across some photos of our older santas that really were the beginning of our Santas and Snowmen.  Way way back this is how our santas looked.

Most of these santas were sold at a gallery in Penisula Ohio called Among Friends.  We were so thrilled when Chris and CJ called us artists.  

These are old woodland santas and a couple of our very first snowmen who were sculpted on burned out light bulbs that our families collected and saved for us to use.  I think they're kinda cute and wish I still had a couple of the old snowmen.  Our new snowman are mostly made using recycled plastic bottles now so we still recycle to make our snowmen. 

Our gardening santas were extremely popular, these were ready for an order for the Wizard of Odds in Saddle River, NJ

As our work progressed our santas got more elaborate as well as taller.  

We made and sold almost all the santas.  I wish we had saved a few...my brother has a collection.  I have a couple and Marge has some as well.  I am glad we took so many photos of our work though to remind us just what all we have accomplished.  

These are bad mood bunnies.  Later we sculpted some classical looking rabbits.

Some of our first cats.  

Snowmen for 2013

Thought I would just add some of the new snowman from this past Christmas.  Santa's were sold locally and through craft shows.  If anyone is interested you can contact me with an email.  Thanks

These snowmen pictured above are all new "members of the choir"

I have more new snowmen and santas planned for 2014.

We also design fall scarecrows, witches, and pumpkin snowmen.

Oophs

I keep forgetting to show off the newest snowmen ornaments.  OOAK hand sculpted, hand painted and then dusted with glitter by me.  I've been calling them Wallee & Jollee.  oh and they are guaranteed not to melt when spring arrives.  I swear they will remain their cheerful, glittery, snowselves.  Promise!

OOAK

OOAK??  Ok so it took me a bit to figure that out and start adding it to our designs.  OOAK stands for one of a kind.  Oh yeah, now I understand and thought maybe I should explain it to anyone who doesn't know.

This is a group of our early santas and snowmen.  I would like to have one of each!

Almost all our work is OOAK, made by hand without the use a mold.  We do produce more than one of certain designs but each one is still done by hand individually.  Sometimes they look close but no two are exactly the same because they really are ooak.  

Take this little santa, he stands about 7 inches tall and is similar in style to other santas we have sculpted.  However this little guy has a different interior, his base is aluminium foil bent and twisted and formed and then covered with a mache base.  The mache for this santa was from Jonni Good's recipe on the Ultimate Paper Mache.   I love the stuff, Marge not so much as me so for now we are using Jonni's recipe along with a commercial product called Celluclay.    When we started this way back in 1994, 1995 we used Celluclay exclusively.  However upon restarting our sculpting projects found the cost of Celluclay along with our bases to be extremely expensive.   I was excited when I found Jonni's website and all the different recipes for paper mash, paper mache.   

The Berkshires & Cape Cod

I know it's been some time since my last post here, but life happens and sometimes that interferes with plans.   Anyway we've been working away on some new designs for Christmas.  Plus we sold some of our  OOAK Santas and ornaments to the gift shop at The Red Lion Inn in Stockbridge, Massachusetts.  If you're in the area stop by and take a peek at them.

The Santa in the middle of this photo looks quite a bit like the santa in the movie "The Polar Express".  Marge added the Believe sign to him because that's what the movie was about.  He was indeed OOAK.  The Red Lion Inn picked him for their collection. 

The ornaments are similar to this fellow,

Or these:

Here's one of our Santas that we won't sell but may at some time try to do another one similar.  He's ooak nautical Santa and looked perfect in Cape Cod where I took this photo.