A butler, smartly dressed in a black-and-white suit and white gloves, stands sentry in the entry of Nancy Chappuis' home.
Around the bend, a mammy flashes a wry but friendly smile.And in the corner of a guest bedroom, a portly English golfer leans playfully on his fairway wood.
But the object of Chappuis' attention lately has been on Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus and an elf, who are hanging out in the front room by the fireplace.
"I get so excited about them that some nights I can't sleep," says Chappuis, obviously proud of her menagerie of life-sized Christmas dolls whose heads she carved from German "Cernit" clay and whose outfits she designed and made herself.
The jolly Yuletide family will soon be part of a donated display she and her neighbor, Kathy Harman, are building for this year's Festival of Trees, which benefits Primary Children's Medical Center and begins Wednesday, Nov. 29, at the Salt Palace.
Chappuis - a self-taught artist and craftswoman - has spent three months laboring on the project, which she could probably sell for more than $5,000.
Donating the creations to the festival, though, is her way of helping to pay back Primary Children's for saving the life of her son, Gerhart.
"I kind of have a soft spot for Primary Children's," she said.
The Christmas characters are not all that's keeping Chappuis busy these days. She is also filling orders from around the country for her dolls, which also include cowboys, boxers, fishermen, a nativity scene and all the cultural variations on St. Nick.
"I would love to recreate some of Norman Rockwell's art" as sculptures, she said.
Chappuis, who makes the dolls' clothes on her kitchen table and cures their heads in her kitchen oven, sells the dolls for $3,000 to $5,000. But she believes they can fetch more money when she finds the right market - a find she hopes to make through Ivy Treasures, a local catalog company that is featuring her line in an upcoming issue.
If that venture isn't enough, Chappuis also is designing boots for a manufacturer in Leon, Mexico.
A seemingly tireless woman, Chappuis also rears five sons, ages 4 to 18, and keeps her husband, Marcel Chappuis, amused by all of her projects.
"He says I'm always `puttsing' around on something or the other."
Like laying marble tile in the front entryway; building an English garden in the front yard and a fireplace in the basement; hand-painting designs on the walls; and making drapes.
"I have an overabundance of energy, wouldn't you say?"
Her custom-crafted houseguests certainly aren't complaining.