PUTZES from 2009!
| NEW PUTZES 2003 |
| NEW PUTZES 2004 |
| NEW PUTZES,2005 |
| NEW PUTZES,2006 |
| NEW PUTZES,2007 |
| NEW PUTZES,2008 |
| BOOKS and MOVIES |
| MAIN PAGE |
| TABLE of CONTENTS |
Antoinette -2009
Again, these are just a teaser - the "tip of the iceberg;" there is SO much more! Visit Antoinette's Home Page for an interactive tour of her new and even more spectacular Mantel Panoramas for this year..including the "Grand Christmas Parade" with accompanying stories of each and every feature.
| *VISIT ANTOINETTE'S HOME PAGE* |
Better than ever this year!
"My multitalented Administrative Assistant, Angie Houser, is helping me send a special Christmas card this year. I took a "tinplate" passenger set reproduced by Mike Wolf of MTH Trains and a 1933 Lionel steam locomotive (No. 262E) restored by Vic Panza to The Christmas Putz in The Lutheran Home at Topton and posed them beneath a 10-foot Christmas tree decorated with antique ornaments, including a Moravian star at eye level. Here is the photo.
For the full story of the Putz (with photos), go to:
| TINPLATE TIMES |
Scroll down. Click on "A Tinplate Christmas Putz."
May our Lord be with you during this holiday season.
Yours in Christ,
Phil"
Pat Healy -2009
I remember that little DeWitt Clinton train! I built one from a solid wood kit purchased from the hobby counter at the old Ben Franklin's in Russell, Kansas ca. 1951. I was about 10.
I just had to have some kind of a train that Christmas!
Where are people getting these big, new "feather" trees? This is the second six-footer that has come to me in putz pictures this year.
"Hi Ted!
Putz fever has gripped me again, and just in time. Setting up the villages is my Absolute Favorite thing to do, and I have spent many happy hours daydreaming about small innovations each year, then tracking down the accessories to realize my plan. Your work been an incredible inspiration to me; in fact, I'd never even seen a putz village before visiting your web site, which my sister Barbara told me about. I was hooked immediately, and am enjoying every second of this wonderful hobby.
Have a wonderful Holiday Season.
Best regards,
Pat Healy"
Jean Sander -2009
This is Jean's first attempt, but I must say. The taste is impeccable!
Here's the other of those "new" six-foot feather trees I mentioned. Where are you guys getting these?
"Dear Ted,
Again, I thank you for your suggestions for lighting my putz village. This is my first attempt and unfortunately, there was not enough time to research the lighting this year (next year for sure). I am still very pleased with the results and thought you might like to see my first attempt. even without the houses lighted. It goes to show you that even late bloomers like myself (pushing seventy) can start a new passion. My friend, Pat Healy peaked my interest and her sister, Barbara Healy made the green house in the left front corner (she copied Pat's original) and I think she did a fabulous job.
Have a wonderful Christmas and next year, the village will have lights!!!
Attached are the photos
Sincerely,
Jean Sander"
Chicago Sister -2009
This is also Antoinette's sister's first attempt,and very nice!
An interesting hybrid! Half"loggie" - half "coconut."
"Hi, Ted,
My sister Christine from Chicago has been collecting cardboard houses for several years now, but she's never put them all together in a complete village. (She has a big collection of Dept. 56 houses, and that's where her energies and flat surfaces have gone.) This year, she cleared a buffet for the cardboard houses, and guess what? They're the show stopper, not the ceramics. Christine's husband got it exactly right when he said that they had a "more fairy-tale look to them" than the Dept. 56.
So here are a few photos for you. My favorite house is the very rare combination coconut-loggie with cotton-top. I'd never seen the big peach house on the far right, either. And look at the shot that includes the two blue coconuts side by side; it tells you at a glance how the houses became more simple with the passing decade. Same finish, but the earlier one on the left has more interesting details, like the gambrelled dormer, the unusual double window, the raffia fence, and the pillars over the stoop.
Charm, charm, and then some. Don't you just love these things?
Happy New Year!
Antoinette"
Well, yes I do. What you said about the way these things grab you: it reminds me of a day back in the early '70s when I had just begun to collect old trains. It was The Christmas Season and I was walking down the street. There in a florist's window was a complete display of the old houses. Something about them was so magnetic that it instantly overtook the love of trains. On that day this website was born ....
-Ted
Carolyn Clement -2009
This is Carolyn's first attempt at a submission, but it's obviously not her first putz. She sent me so many pictures I just couldn't decide, and so here are about two dozen of them! It's not a huge putz, but every inch is superbly done and is full of great things in fabulous condition. We've got a real"pro," here ...
I like the way it's in the middle of the room and you can do a full 360 walk-around.
What a candy box! But is it one - or TWO?
I like the eclectic use of my favorite of the Pineville buildings to create a microcosmic farm, here. That silo is home-made from a cardboard tube, I understand.
Oh, to be a kid bouncing on that couch, eh?
"My daughter just emailed me these pictures that she took over Christmas and it's my first time sharing my putz village. I just noticed that one of the printie houses was missing-probably one of my grandsons! I will be sending other emails with more detail. There must be some limit to the number of pictures per email. This is all new to me.
Hope you enjoy,
Carolyn Clement"
Barb Healy -2009
"Hi Ted...
The snowy mountain /alpine village scene you've included in 2009 Putzes is my second putz in my house...not Barb 's annual hardware store window display putz.
All three of us Healy girls are RABID fans !!!
Best,
Pat Healy"
Kathleen and Barb Healy collaborated on the Fireplace putz , and it is on display in the same Phillie hardware store as last year, Killians Hardware, on Germantown Avenue.
Barb's big story this year is that re-creation of a putz remembered from childhood - built into a fireplace. That's got to be one swell window!
"Hello Ted,
You may recall me telling you a few years back that the way I got interested in this hobby was remembering the Christmas putz set up every year by my neighbor. She would set up a wonderful scene in an unused fireplace in her living room, complete with houses, twinkling lights and a pond with skaters gliding by. I seem to recall that she used Ivory Snow laundry flakes as the “snow”. Naturally I was not allowed to touch anything in the display, but I spent hours gazing at the scene and imagining myself living in that world.
Recently I re-connected with the son of my old neighbor, who had long since passed away. He was delighted to hear that I remembered their Christmas village and was carrying on the tradition in my own family. I asked him if he had any photographs of their display, as I wanted to recreate it in the hardware store window that I have decorated for the past couple of years. Unfortunately, he was not able to locate pictures in time, but I decided to go with my memory of the scene, and hence, the theme for the hardware store display was born. I fashioned a fireplace out of cardboard boxes, taped together and painted to resemble bricks. It was about the same time that I was wrestling those boxes in my basement that my back went out, and the prospect of me decorating anything was looking pretty grim. Fortunately, my sister Kathleen was very interested in helping with the window and came to the rescue, bearing a Christmas tree, ornaments and lights galore! It was she who did all of the work involved in creating the display this year, and when all was said and done my happy childhood vision was realized once again.
I hope you and your fans have an equally happy Christmas and New Year!
Barb Healy"
That's what my mother always used - Ivory Snow flakes. They looked like mica. She first made a frothey batter of them to frost the tree branch tips using a butter knife, then sprinkled on the dry flakes and it was lovely - that is - before that infernal spray-can snow came out in the Fifties. It looked great the first year, but the next year when we unpacked the Christmas stuff, all of our old treasured ornaments - some from my Dad's own childhood - and the village things were ruined, most of our dearest tree-decorating traditions gone ....
Robby Lucke -2009
Robby had to move into town - Havre, Montana - to take care of his mother this year, and so found his available space for putzing much curtailed.
It's pretty much tucked into niches all around.
He's gotten into a lot of German stuff this year. I, personally, never thought it had the charm of the Japanese, but these are better than most I've seen.
He's done his first store window, though, in downtown Havre. He says it was about 30 below when he took this picture. Yikes!
Tom Hull -2009
I'll just let Tom take you on his own tour of all this ...
"Here are some pictures of the putzes in the fireplace room. These were taken with the photo flash and for some reason are not very clear pictures after they are tweaked so will have to retake some using some photo flood lights.
The putz on the top of the cabinent are all Santa window houses OR ones that came in the original box of the Santa window houses. The lower putz is of some earlier or rarer Haciendas PLUS two of my absolute favorites - the Christmas tree house and the green Grandpa house.
Just below is a display of Candy Box Houses, and a TINY little light up house with a molded textured roof like a lacquie house. Mullioned windows show that it IS a functional house if very small. It is an EXTREMELY oblique building. Notice that a couple of the candy box houses are also oblique.
This shot of the Mantle shows the log cabin village on the right side of the mantle. On the right side (second from that end) is a Karl Fey House.
This shows a couple of the Super Giants on the left and the loggies on the right and the RR/Christmas light poles.
The left side of the mantel where the Giants are as they don't play well with other houses! The black auto in the middle right is a model of a 1909 Stanley.
This is another Cabinet putz. The top shelf has some that are VERY much part of a set. The one on the front row to the extreme right is one that was purchased along with one very like the red one on the extreme left and on the second row the blue house on the left and the Yellow/Orange house with the pottery door. This set also had a house very much like the white one that is second from the left on the front row, only slightly larger. There was a large loggie also with this set but I don't have it.
The second row hase some old favorites and a NEW favorite. Smack dab in the center is a VERY rare LARGER version of the house just to the right. Will get a better picture later. All of these houses are favorites. ENJOY and MERRY CHRISTMAS.
- Tom Hull"
Paul, of Buffalo -2009
"Putzin' around," Paul calls it.
"Hello Ted,
I thought you might enjoy seeing a picture of my version of a mica putz village. I'm just about finished for this year. Instead of making an exact replica, I cartoonized the houses a little by curving the lines (which made scoring and folding more difficult of course) but I had fun. Have a great holiday.
Paul"
Judith Handegard -2009
"I am in Almont,North Dakota. I love these little houses as I remember them under the tree as a child in the 40s. Wish I had just one of those original ones.Not sure how I found your site, but that was the beginning of my search for as many as I could find.I have numerous other shots on facebook.Just got a friend to wire up a string of the old Lionel street lights and will add them next year as well as some telephone poles. Guess theres no end in site!! This is setup in a window seat in my dining rm and will stay up for another month or so.I placed the icicle garlands across the opening to keep little grandkids from touching. When they get too close the icicles start falling to the floor! They are older now and it wouldn't be necessary anymore but love the look and sparkle!! I so enjoy your site and all the info I've gotten on it.
Carole Bailey -2009
"This year , I displayed "the best" of my putz houses in my foyer with an old cellophane tree and vintage Santa. If you can see it, near the center on the second row, the tall blue house is a candy box.
Regards,
Carole Bailey"
