For over fifteen years, artisan Michelle Jewell Treichler has been creating unique handmade Santas and other Christmas collectibles. During that time, a WHIMSIES Santa has become known to Santa lovers and collectors for Michelle’s use of vintage  fabrics and furs, specially reproduced antique toys, books, and gifts, and for the fact that every WHIMSIES Santa is an individual creation.

Each Santa’s hands and faces are hand sculpted from a polymer clay – no molds are used. So no two WHIMSIES Santas are exactly alike. The wool used for the hair and beards is hand-shorn from the Cotswold sheep from Nistock Farms in western NY.

The gifts a WHIMSIES Santa brings are hand-selected and range from miniaturized  versions of actual antiques in Michelle’s collection or reproductions of vintage tools or collectibles. Family mementos and other treasured items have been used for special commissions, making what was already unique even more so.

As you will see, each WHIMSIES Santa is a one-of-a-kind. Many of the creations and commissions for the 2010 season have now been posted on this site… and there are more to come!

Michelle is currently working on two Father Christmases; one in vintage velvet with mink trim and the other in a crazy quilt robe with sable trim – both with “tons” of toys, two Belsnickles (fashioned after the German interpretation of Father Christmas, they are taller and thinner than Michelle’s traditional Father Christmases), a seated and a standing Cooking Claus (with pots and pans, plates of baked goods, chef’s toque, and your favorite family recipes), and a “Tattered Claus” garbed in a ragged vintage quilt bringing antique toys.Pictures of these will be posted as soon as they are completed.