When Gary Vaillancourt gave his wife, Judi, a gift of three antique chocolate molds in 1984, neither of them knew it would signal the start of a new family business. In the years since, Judi's collection has grown to more than 3,000 vintage molds — one of the largest collections in the world. She uses her molds to make hand-painted collectible chalkware figures for all major holidays — especially Christmas.

Today, Vaillancourt Folk Art (VFA) is one of America's last remaining Christmas ornament and collectibles makers. Unlike most Christmas collectibles, which are manufactured overseas, Vaillancourt chalkware figures are still made by hand at the VFA studio in Sutton, Mass. Visitors can tour behind-the-scenes as artists hand-paint more than 300 different versions of Santa Claus and Father Christmas figures.

Judi's chocolate molds date to the nineteenth century, when a gift of chocolate was a special treasure and every small European village had a chocolate shop. Chocolate was molded in all shapes and sizes — bunnies for Easter and St. Nicholas, snowmen and angels for Christmas. The mold-makers were skilled artisans who sculpted beautiful details into their molds and lovingly passed their craft and their molds down through the generations.

Fascinated by the exquisite workmanship in her antique molds, Judi, an artist by training, filled them with a plaster-like substance and hand-painted the resulting "chalkware." The finished products were stunning. By painting the figurines, Judi had unlocked the mold-makers' intricate artistry, bringing it to life as never before.

While the mold-makers' palette had been limited — quite literally — to chocolate brown, Judi's colors brought the figures to life. Particularly compelling are the hand-painted eyes on the faces of each figure, which display a richness of emotion completely hidden when the pieces were molded in chocolate.

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