About a year and a half ago I moved my chocolate shop into town and opened up a beautiful store front on Main Street. What an amazing space! I am so fortunate to have my shop in an amazing old building in town. But!!! The windows…. Two beautiful glass paned windows looking onto Main Street that have to be filled with displays of my chocolates.
Which melt.
In the south facing windows.
And so, the dilemma…how to display what I make in a window that will melt my product. Hmmm. Last summer I decided to tell a story about chocolate and the fun-ness of sharing my chocolates through a story in the window but not actually have any chocolates in the window because, oh yes- they melt.
So October… Mr. Bones the skeleton eating a delicious box of chocolates and all the skeleton family- mice, cats, dogs owls- enjoying chocolates, which I made from small wooden cubes and painted to look like chocolates. In the other window a group of glowing witches with a self-stirring cauldron I built with a rotisserie chicken motor. Owls flying around and chocolate potions on the boil. Crazy- fun. November…well that’s easy. Family, Travel, gifts of chocolate (boxes empty, of course) to bring to friends. Corn stalks, hay bales….what a mess!
Christmas- well that was easy and difficult. I put my favorite glowing reindeer in the window and told the story of the reindeer bringing chocolate on sleds as gifts. I found a beautiful hand made wooden sledge from Europe and gorgeous tiny ceramic houses from Lithuania. I spent 3 months building a diorama of glowing snowy houses and a glowing reindeer surrounded by snowy trees. I almost bought a snow machine to blow real snow but decided that Maine would provide …and it did.
In February I bought a real bow and had pudgy cupids shooting arrows I made from dowels and silver feathers shooting a dirge of chocolate boxes that I had ordered and spray painted because the color was all wrong and I ended up with 200 boxes of a copper color that was really orange! Ew! Oh boy- Maine Maple Sunday. Well, how do you make a tree and still be able to lift it? Sonotube! I spent a couple weeks building fake trees out of sonotube and glueing pretend bark and trying to get them to stand up in the snow because they were too tall for my basement work room. Then I begged the Bryants for a bunch of gorgeous galvanized sugar pales et Voila! Pretend trees spouting pretend sap. Maybe this one will need a little more work next year….
And then the fun Easter window…chocolate Easter rabbits blowing bubble gum bubbles. That was a TON of work but in the end, it made me so happy to see the chocolate bunnies and all the pink bubbles, it was totally worth the work of constructing trellis and painting plastic balls just the right color of pink. Figuring out how to have a wall of flowers not flop around but look like real flowers.
Phew! Glad I don’t have to do that again! Until next year at least.
Oh Spring- I am always so happy to get some color and warmth put up. Birds and butterflies and grass and gorgeous Satin ribbon streamers. When I finished this window, I couldn’t stop looking at it. It just made me happy. Like they say- Spark Joy! And the last window which I finally put-up Saturday. Summer. I am closed and yet it’s Maine in the summer. So many amazing things to do. I am always so grateful that I get to live here and do what I do. I hope my windows portray my gratitude and happiness. This summer I put my bike that in the window again. I have kept it for 45 years- it was my favorite. There’s about 500 miles of happiness on those wheels. To the other window I added a chair I= bought at an auction in Cornish about 15 years ago. Made in Paris, Maine. Super cool to me that Maine people make such crafty, tidy, useful things. There’s also a story like always. Maybe when you visit you will see the story I am telling with my windows… I make my chocolates to be a special treat, shared with the ones you love.