Ornaments

Saks.com has just featured my Times Square ornament on their holiday main page !

What an honor.  My ornaments are now available  in-store and online from them.

One that you should especially check out this year is  the Saks Custom 2009 design.  It is really fun. I have been doing custom balls for Saks for the last 5 years and normally I feature the building front and center. This year I wanted to switch it up. The theme is the saks elevator featuring  a very new york moment: a stylish mother, father and daughter(hugging her American girl doll) sharing the lift with Santa and the Statue of Liberty.

What you can’t see online are all the other details- the chrysler building and empire state  emerging from a saks gift box, a skating Prometheus by the  Rock Center tree, a newstand, top and bottom are the white snow branches you see on the main floor, the facade of the store  smaller on back, and lots of snowflakes.   The doors are painted with a mirror like silver so they are actually reflective like the doors in the store. It retails for $75.00.

Each is handpainted, taking 3-5 days to complete each one!This is a limited edition of 500 balls- only for 2009.

Also new for this year is a custom Saks dog-  A Maltese sporting a Statue of Liberty hat  while lounging in an Espadrille shoe. A limited edition of 200 and retails at $42.00My first signing at Saks will be on November 7th. from 1-4 PM.

Hope to see you there!

Until the next sketch!

Convention Day two.

Had a wonderful breakfast with some Glow members from Honolulu, Hawaii, and then ventured off to one of the workshops. First I learned to make a cotton batting ornament with artist Lucy Webber.

These are ornaments made from batting, in this case cotton, which is less than a quarter of an inch thick and comes in sheets. From Lucy’s website “Cotton batting ornaments were made in the late 1800′s by cottage craftsmen of the Saxon Thuringian area of Germany.”

At the end  of the workshop, I had  a cute little Santa!  (whose photo is above.)

Second workshop was on how to make a cotton batting tree with folk artist  Jack Roads.  You start with a wire frame of a tree in a wooden base(or you can use a real tree), apply glue to each branch and to the trunk, and wrap it in cotton batting.  Then you use wallpaper paste to hold it all together and smooth it out.  A photo of  my final product is at top.

Fun times, great instructors!

By the way, I did find that antique feather tree – a small early green  table-top one with tin candle holders… and  guess who was selling it? The couple next to me in the ornament workshop!

Until the next sketch!