Handmade holiday crafts featured at West Overton Village Makers Market
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Evalee Toby was looking for a hobby as the world sat and waited out the coronavirus pandemic.
So she gathered some wood, watched some YouTube videos and through trial and error learned to craft handmade decorative blocks. Four years later, it’s become a business.
“I wish I had been a carpenter and I love doing it,” Toby said as she described her pieces of art, each with a different quote or saying painted and stenciled on to hand-cut wood blocks she had for sale Sunday during the second day of the West Overton Village and Museum’s holiday makers market in East Huntingdon.
Toby, 68, of Level Green was among the 60 vendors who peddled their wares during the two-day weekend event.
Crafting is only a side gig for Toby. She works full time as a preschool teacher in South Park. In her off time, she buys lumber and designs 100 new items a year that she sells during markets conducted during the spring and in the winter holiday season.
That’s the focus on the museum’s holiday market, West Overton co-executive Director Aaron Hollis Jr. said.
“This is just a celebration of folks who make their own goods and to get people into the museum,” Hollis said.
West Overton Village since 1922 has served as a historical enclave to commemorate the region’s rich industrial and agricultural roots. Among its 19 original buildings are a distillery that produces local whiskey products and a museum that focuses on the property’s history.
“We don’t allow resale items. That’s part of our historical focus,” Hollis said of the makers market. “People at West Overton were crafters so we’re celebrating the roods of West Overton. It’s important to feature those makers.”
Makers displaying their products Sunday included Briana McGee, 33, and her mother, Tammy McGee, 60, of Latrobe. The McGees’ business, Crafty Critters Pet Shop, features hand-crocheted animals.
The McGees had dozens of small hand-crocheted chickens, which they said takes several hours to make, along with reindeer, cats, fish, monsters and even some space aliens for sale.
The skills to make their products were passed down from mother to daughter.
“I started crocheting when I was 12,” Briana McGee said, noting that animals and pets have become a big part of her life. She works at a local pet shop as dog groomer and is in college majoring in forestry and animal life with an eye toward going to work at the Pittsburgh Zoo or the National Aviary.
Karen Andelmo is another part-time crafter seller. The West Overton market is just the ninth she has participated in since starting her side business two years ago. Andelmo, 54, of North Huntingdon works full time as an engineer for Giant Eagle, making sure the grocery chain’s food is properly chilled in the store aisles.
She makes fabric crafts including trees made by poking small pieces of cloth into Styrofoam shells and pinning smaller pieces into old thread spools.
“I started by making gifts for people, and my friends told me I should start selling them,” Andelmo said. “I went to school for environmental science and then went to work after college for a florist. I have this creative side so I’m just accessing a creative outlet.”