80th American Crafts & Historic Homes Tour
I create fine art in watercolor using Winsor Newton watercolor paints on 300 pound hot and cold pressed papers, I specialize in landscapes, old barns, animals of all kinds and pet portraits.
Everything in life is art. That has been true in my life ever since I can remember. Currently, I am working in mixed media—acrylic paint, vintage paper and, sometimes, found objects. However, for years I worked in textiles, specifically I hooked rugs
and am the author of Hooked on Words, published in 2018 by Ampry Publishing.
Once in a while, some textile form appears in my current work—an actual piece of wool or an image of a quilt or a rug or a sheep. I am drawn to antiques and images
of anything vintage but my great love is for Windsor chairs. I’m very lucky to live in Williamsburg, Virginia, with inspiring history all around me, but I once lived in Waterford which will always be in my heart.
We grew up in a home that fostered a love for the handmade. So much so, dad
insisted that craftsmen training came first in our lives. With a heritage of
accomplished inventors and tradesmen, who could blame him?
Our parents took us along on frequent visits to antique stores, galleries, and
other places that sold fine furnishings. Mom always reminded us at the door,
“Look with your eyes, not with your hands.” For us boys, that wasn’t always easy.
Learning traditional methods of artistry—blacksmithing, woodworking, and
leather crafting—was never a chore for us. As teens, we didn’t just apprentice
with master craftsmen, we built our own forge and workshops in the backyard.
Today, we thrive on creating beauty in our lives, and the lives of others. By
transforming natural, raw materials into quality home and lifestyle goods, we
write stories to tell for generations to come. If you love the smell of leather, the
warmth of real wood, and the heft of metal, let us help write your story, too
Our products are handmade from start to finish using original recipes. The soaps contain no animal fats and are scented with plant essential oils or cosmetic grade fragrances. Each hand cut bar weighs at least 3.5 ounces and is wrapped in cotton fabric with a recycled paper wrapper. Our vegetable oils are non-GMO certified, our fragrances are phthalate free, and our palm oil is RSPO sustainable.
Helberg has always been interested in history and a portion of her artwork reflects that. Whaling paintings and whaling scenes on boxes, as well as sea monsters attacking ships are part of Helberg’s artwork.
She enjoys creating tavern signs that depict imaginary places in Early America. Having spent most of her childhood in York County, PA, Helberg was immersed in the painted hex signs on barns and fraktur art and uses those images on the decorative boxes. Years ago, she mastered the technique of Early American vinegar graining and she always features some grained boxes at the Fair.
Helberg has also created a line of Memento Mori paintings and chests, featuring the dancing skeletons and Plaque Doctors of the late Middle Ages, as well as Halloween paintings and portraits of Edgar Allen Poe and Nosferatu.
Helberg’s paintings are in the permanent collections of The National Portrait Gallery/Smithsonian, the Clinton Presidential Library, the Reginald Lewis Museum of African American Art, Musee D’Art Naif in Quebec and the Carter Center of President Jimmy Carter.
Amy and Joe are passionate artisans dedicated to preserving and creating Colonial, Traditional, and Historic items by hand. They specialize in crafting solid beeswax heirloom collectible figures and ornaments using traditional German techniques of molding and carving beeswax, a skill dating back to the early 1500s. They support local apiaries and manage their own honeybee hives to ensure they use the highest quality beeswax.
Each piece they create is unique due to the natural variations in beeswax. The Witmer’s meticulously crafted works are cherished in private collections worldwide, and they take great pride in their detailed, handcrafted pieces that merge history with craftsmanship.
Stop by their tent, just outside the Old School, to learn more about their work and art.
Our products are produced completely by hand using 100% pure and locally sourced beeswax. We scent our beeswax using a custom blend of pure essential oil created only for Cinnamon Treasures. We start with a solid block of beeswax, melt it down, add our scent, then we hand pour and hand finish each and every item that we sell – from scratch. We use antique, vintage, rare, very early, and hard to find chocolate molds to pour into and create our pieces. This makes our pieces very rare and unique because you have to acquire very early and hard to find molds. We also pour using early flat molds, chocolate, springerle, and cookie molds to make unique ornaments. We have a wide range of items with a large focus on Christmas and Santas, to rabbits, turkeys, chickens, pigs, horses, bee skeps and bees, hearts, cats, dogs, etc.! It’s hard to name them all!
This unique art of molding and carving beeswax began in Germany centuries ago with the Lebkuchen bakers. The bakers used their Springerle and gingerbread boards to mold the first beeswax ornaments. This became a holiday tradition. These boards were carved from fruitwood into elaborate scenes of animals, birds, guild workers, country life and St. Nicholas. By the mid-1500’s, Christmas markets were thriving in German towns. There are records of bakers attending these fairs making gingerroot flavored breads, as well as merchants who made wax souvenirs which people took home and hung on their Christmas tree.It is a tradition that we carry on today. We have expanded this tradition to include casting and pouring figures from exceedingly rare and early authentic chocolate molds from makers in France and Germany as well as the US.
We have built a large following of collectors of our pieces and would love to showcase them at your artisan show.
Original folk art paintings are done on gessoed board using acrylics. A series of glazes seal the paintings and a shrink coat is applied to create cracks (the aged appearance). Oils are rubbed in to define the cracks. When dried, the shrink coat is washed off and a series of varnish coats are applied. the paintings are then placed in hand-grained and frequently lettered frames.