Hello from Chicago

[Carrie]

Hi all, my name is Carrie Sansing. This will be my 40th year putting up a Christmas display. I heard about this site over on Constantly Christmas where I am one of the founders and Administrators. I've also been a member of PlanetChristmas since 1999 or so. It's nice to see a site like this where so many Christmas subjects are rolled into one!

We do Christmas inside and out and I'm a blow mold collector. My husband recently told me that I had to stop buying because he did a quick count and informed me that we have between 700-800 of them. Whatever number there are doesn't matter because each and every one of them means something to me. We also put up a Halloween display, but no other holidays.

Its nice to be here and I'm looking forward to sharing, learning, and helping in whatever way I can.

[Mistress Muffy]

Carrie Welcome......Glad to have to have You!

700-800 Blow Molds....wow!

Muffy

[Elvira]

Welcome Carrie :)

Holy cow! Where do you store them all? I'd love to see some pics of them.

[Ryan_Johnson]

For those who don't know- Carrie is one of the best around... and I'm not talking about decorating, although she's awesome at that as well!

She's a good friend and definately one of the "good guys" in the decorating community. Always willing to offer her experience (without being condescending) and help directly when asked (I needed some teathers for inflatables and Carrie found a bunch in her storage... in APRIL... and sent them to me.) That's the kind of person she is.

Welcome Carrie! Very glad you're here!

Ryan


Hi all, my name is Carrie Sansing. This will be my 40th year putting up a Christmas display. I heard about this site over on Constantly Christmas where I am one of the founders and Administrators. I've also been a member of PlanetChristmas since 1999 or so. It's nice to see a site like this where so many Christmas subjects are rolled into one!

We do Christmas inside and out and I'm a blow mold collector. My husband recently told me that I had to stop buying because he did a quick count and informed me that we have between 700-800 of them. Whatever number there are doesn't matter because each and every one of them means something to me. We also put up a Halloween display, but no other holidays.

Its nice to be here and I'm looking forward to sharing, learning, and helping in whatever way I can.

[Sickie Ickie]

Welcome Carrie! :D I've read your article about revamping blow molds several times. I also have a link to that article in my site SantasProjects.com .

Grab a seat by the fire! Putrid, pass a candy cane to our new member! :)

[Carrie]

Thanks all, and Ryan (wow, I'm blushing here! LOL)

Elvira, storing blow molds is always a challenge, even when you only have a few so that you don't bang, dent, or scratch them. I know some collectors who have well over 1,000. Glad I'm not there yet. We have a barn shed, a metal storage shed and we use our entire garage which includes a loft. The garage also holds our wireframes, inflatables, controllers for animation (we use LOR), and thousands of lights (I don't know how many lights I have or use each year exactly, but we have added a dedicated electrical subpanel to the house to help with the load.)

Sickie, I don't know which article you read, but I did update it for use at PLUS2007 last year where I taught 2 labs on restoring blow molds. If you're interested in the updated version, send me a PM and I'll get one to you.

I love..truly love Christmas, love to decorate for it, talk about it, share what I know, and help others learn about our hobby, passion, obsession, advocation whatever you call it.

Thanks again for the warm welcome!:)

[putrid]

Well Howdy Carrie and welcome to the forum. Totally cool to have you aboard. 700+ blowmolds? And I thought I was a collector of Christmas stuff. LOL

[Sickie Ickie]

Sickie, I don't know which article you read, but I did update it for use at PLUS2007 last year where I taught 2 labs on restoring blow molds. If you're interested in the updated version, send me a PM and I'll get one to you.

If you post it on line, I'll update the link for it, and I'd have a blast reading the updated version! I'm familiar with the version at planetchristmas

[Thomas Steiner]

For those who don't know- Carrie is one of the best around... and I'm not talking about decorating, although she's awesome at that as well!

She's a good friend and definately one of the "good guys" in the decorating community. Always willing to offer her experience (without being condescending) and help directly when asked (I needed some teathers for inflatables and Carrie found a bunch in her storage... in APRIL... and sent them to me.) That's the kind of person she is.

Welcome Carrie! Very glad you're here!

Ryan

Welcome Carrie!! I am so very glad that you joined this great little Christmas site. You have been a long time friend of mine too. It is fabulous here. I am in agreement as to what Ryan has posted here too. I could not have said it any better, Ryan. Again, welcome aboard Carrie!:)

[Elvira]

Thats so awesome Carrie, it sure must be nice to have the storage for all of them, it has to be a challenge to keep them from getting damaged. Do you display them every yr at christmas time? Or is there some that you just don't risk putting out?

[Carrie]

Elvira, LOL I wish I did have proper storage for all of them..that is why our cars have not been in the garage for years! We don't have enough power to display them all. I do rotate them, picking and choosing different molds for different design themes each year. Its fun to come up with an idea for the display and then go "shopping" in the sheds for the ones we're going to use. We put out between 200-250 each year. One thing I haven't done is to keep any of them out of the rotation. I do take the risk, otherwise there is no point, at least to me, of having them. Some of the molds are valuable $$ wise and those molds get extra "special" security treatment. I do worry about thieves and vandals and take every precaution I can, but if someone is determined to rip me off, they will no matter what.

[Elvira]

Oh you aren't just kidding Carrie! People have this thing about ruining it for others, whether it be to vandalize, or to simply just take them. I guess I just don't get it. Shhh... I have that same problem, have a garage but my truck hasn't seen the inside of it in 3 yrs! LOL I imagine that does suck alot of power, but, OH MAN! can you imagine all of them displayed, I think I would camp in your yard just to see them when I get up every morning. I wouldn't be the vandal, but you might be calling the cops to have my tent removed! LOL You must post some pics soon, would love to see them displayed.

[Carrie]

Oh you aren't just kidding Carrie! People have this thing about ruining it for others, whether it be to vandalize, or to simply just take them. I guess I just don't get it. .


Neither do I Elvira, especially when you think about how someone could be so low to damage a display or steal from someone who only wants to make others happy? I'll never understand it either.

I'll resize some photos of my display and post them as soon as I can. Its not as good as it may sound, but it does make a lot of people smile!

[Elvira]

Thank you Carrie, I look forward to seeing them. I can imagine the smiles it gets, as the saying goes: Wear a smile - one size fits all. :)

[Nancj]

Welcome Carrie, Glad to have another Chicagoan on board. I'm on the southwest side few blocks from Midway airport, where around Chicago are you from? 700+ Yikes!! can't wait to see the pics. I'm sure you'll enjoy your stay here. Pour yourself a hot cup of cocoa because its end of May and the temp is 42 degrees, thats Chicago for ya! Brrrrr its cold!

[Sickie Ickie]

LOL, I have the south suburbs covered. :p

[Elvira]

We're currently sitting at 68 F... think thats the right conversion. :D Not to bad for the great white north during the month of may.

[Mummy deer-est]

There must be eggnog in those Chicago waters!
Welcome to the club, Carrie! Glad to have ya!

[Carrie]

Welcome Carrie, Glad to have another Chicagoan on board. I'm on the southwest side few blocks from Midway airport, where around Chicago are you from? 700+ Yikes!! can't wait to see the pics. I'm sure you'll enjoy your stay here. Pour yourself a hot cup of cocoa because its end of May and the temp is 42 degrees, thats Chicago for ya! Brrrrr its cold!

Hi Nancj! I'm up in Glenview, the northern suburbs. You have Midway covered and I'm about 15-20 minutes north east of O'Hare..yikes those planes can be pretty loud and low sometimes. We're right in the flight path of all the traffic that comes in from the East Coast. The temp right now is 49, good sleeping weather but this is Spring? LOL

[bethene]

Hello Carrie, welcome to the forum! Wow, 700 blowmolds! I absolutely can not wait for pictures!!
I know what you mean about being in a flight pattern, while The Gerald Ford Airport in Grand Rapids is in no way compared to O'Hare, I still have the traffic that comes from the west fly right between my neighbors house and my own, it can be so noisy!

[bethene]

Carrie, would love to hear about the Santas you carve!!

[Sickie Ickie]

That makes me, too!

[Carrie]

Bethene and SI (sickie Ickie), I've been a wood carver for about 15 years or so. I kinda started in it because I had been doing traditional leather carving since I was a teenager (saddles, bridles, belts, gun cases..that type of thing) so working in wood seemed like a logical sequence and its cheaper to do (getting untreated carvable leather is pretty expensive now).

The Santas I carve are done with knives, gouges and sometimes a chisel. Most of the pieces I do are small, under 24 inches. I wish I had some pictures of them but I no longer do. My computer crashed a few years ago and I lost a ton of data from my hard drive, including 100s of picture files. I've sold or given away all of the carvings I do except for one or two. I really enjoy carving, find it very relaxing. There are a lot of people who do nothing but Santa Carvings, but I do other things as well. My new project, if I ever get it started, will be a complete Nativity with many figures and animals.

I'm pretty bad about taking pictures of my projects, but I do have one of a Buffalo I did a few years ago, the picture survived the hard drive crash and was retrieved. I know he isn't Christmas related, and the photo shows him before he was complete, but it will give you an idea of what I do. I'm still learning and trying to improve my techniques and obviously have a long way to go still.

[Nancj]

Carrie thats beautiful! You are very artistic. how long does it take you to carve something like that?

[Carrie]

Nancj, thank you. I'm pretty slow about carvings because I rarely have a big block of time. The Buffalo took about 25 hours or so at that point. He was carved from a solid block of Basswood, which is a pretty soft wood but harder than pine. I'm really picky about details..so another 20 hours to get him done would be about right.

The Santas go a lot faster, I've been able to get some of them done in less than 15 hours.

[Carrie]

I finally got some time to put up a few pictures of our outside display. These are from 2005 (I think?) and 2007. The one picture shows a newer type of decoration. I designed the Father Christmas, had him built as a wireframe and then added in coroplast and lights to fill him out.

[Sickie Ickie]

Awesome carving!

[Elvira]

Awesome carving... and totally incrediable display, gorgeous I love it! So cheerful, and festive. I bet you bring so many smiles to ppls faces when they see your display.

[Mistress Muffy]

Oh Carrie what a display...lots of love & work go into that I bet!! How in the world do you plug that all in?

Muf

[Nancj]

Carrie your display is beautiful. and so organized. how long does it take you to set up?

[Carrie]

Muffy, we added an additional subpanel to the house, dedicated to the outside Christmas lights. Plugging it all in? Hmmm..don't want to bore anyone with that, but we do use a couple of hundred extension cords. From the power supply, heavy duty outdoor rated cords, and then you scale down into lighter weight cords and use triple taps.

Nancj, this year I never finished the display as the weather ruined my plans. But generally it takes about 5-6 full days of work, not including staging in back (testing, changing bulbs, etc.)

[Elvira]

Holy mackeral! couple hundred extension cords, I would need a shed just for cords! LOL 5-6 days to set up doesn't sound to bad, you need a helper Carrie, someone you can tell what to do while you walk around in work boots and a hard hat :D

[Mummy deer-est]

I love the choir!

[Sickie Ickie]

Viva la electrical Conductor to the Choir! LOL

[spookineer]

Holy yumpin' yiminies! That's a lot of blow molds. Welcome to the forum!

[Mistress Muffy]

Carrie ....I just wanted to commend you on your wood carving. Your work looks beautiful.

Jerry & I took a wood carving class some years ago.....oh it was such fun, we took it w/ another couple, her hubby was a head trauma victim & we use to do a lot of things together. Jerry was really good at the carving, he had a knack for it. We teased him about it & told him he was good at it because of all the years he was a meat cutter so the touch of those tools in his hands was quite natural.

Me on the hand ....I wanted to learn it for just one piece. This wooden Santa ornament the instructor made. The instructor was the minister from the methodist church & a very good customer in our Diner!

Those days I was doing a big basket business along with the candy business and in my baskets that I made each one got a xmas ornament. Considering everything in the basket was handmade food items..... I thought it would be neat to carve these wooden santa ornaments & attach them in the baskets too! Everybody in class made fun of me cause all I wanted to carve was those santa's!lol Yup we still have our boxes with a few projects & those santa's!!

I never thought I could do something like that but it took me watching every cut they made. I wish I had time to do more of that stuff!

Muf