For over twenty five years, the Vaillancourt family has been making Santas. The recipe is simple, take an historic collection of chocolate moulds, add an apparent love of the holidays, involve the entire family and the results are apparent. Quality and historically correct chalkware Santas created in America by masters painters. Judi Vaillancourt received a small collection of antique candy molds (three pieces!) and decided to play a bit with them. She tried using them to make chocolate Santas, as well as beeswax Santas. She then settled on using a liquid chalk material, coined by them as “contemporary chalkware*”. The Santas were a success when she showed them — getting orders for 30 pieces. The next time the order was for 100 pieces! Pretty soon it wasn’t a hobby, but a full-time business. About that time husband Gary’s work contract was up and he joined the business. Son Luke joined the family business in August of 2007 as the Director of Digital Marketing. Read Barbara Crews’ full article, Collecting Chalkware Santas from Vaillancourt, on about.com!
