Best Demonstrating Artisan of 2023
Cinnamon Treasures
Mixed Media
Amy and Joe Witmer 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.
