The Adobe Flash Player is required to view this multimedia interactive. Get it here.

Barker open house to feature original handpainted ornaments

Shoppers will be treated to more than 250 designs

Barker Ornaments employee Gail Cook paints angel ornaments as the Oxford business gets ready for its 16-day open house.

Contributed photo by Katie Rico Barker Ornaments employee Gail Cook paints angel ornaments as the Oxford business gets ready for its 16-day open house.

ENLARGE PHOTO

Butler County Fair Results, Sunday, Aug. 1
New 8 min. ago
Medical helicopter on scene of College Corner Pike accident
Updated 26 min. ago
Local band to play some classics at music festival
11:17 a.m.
Children invited to learn from Miami football coach
10:39 a.m.
Community briefs
10:38 a.m.
> More headlines

E-mail this page

By Katie Rico, Contributing Writer Updated 6:22 PM Thursday, December 3, 2009

This holiday season, Barker Ornaments is opening up its home for shoppers who want a unique, handmade decoration.

For more than 50 years, the Barker family has run a unique business making hundreds of handpainted wooden ornaments.

Angels, snowmen and Santas are among the many holiday favorites.

“We have over 250 original designs. This year at the open house, we’ll have about 35 designs, four of those being new designs,” said owner Ralph Barker.

Barker Ornaments also creates custom ornaments, and has created tens of thousands of custom designs for schools, churches, historic buildings and other special venues.

Since 1953, the Barker family has been crafting handmade Christmas ornaments in the comfort of their Oxford home on the historic Brown Homestead farm.

Marjorie and Charles Barker founded Barker Ornaments after they first made wooden ornaments to decorate the Christmas tree for their son, Ralph.

Requests for similar ornaments from members of their church prompted the Barkers to take their artistry to the next level.

In 1974, Ralph joined his parents in the business, and since their passing, has carried on the family tradition.

“A lot of people don’t realize how much work goes into it; it’s a full time job,” Barker said.

Since August, Ralph, his wife, Cindy Carpenter Barker, and their employees have been busy preparing for the 16-day open house, where the Barker’s will turn the bottom floor of their home into, essentially, a gift shop.

“This time of year, it’s nothing but ornaments,” Ralph said.

Since the start of their ornament business, the family has gained a number of collectors, both locally and globally.

Barker Ornaments now has more than 4,000 people on its mailing list that received invitations to this year’s open house.

The staff is hard at work making sure they can meet the needs of their customers this holiday season.

“They have an internal clock of knowing how much stock they need. They know the balance between how many collectors there are and how many to make,” Cindy said of her husband and the other artists.

The Barkers said that shoppers will find not only their ornaments, but they’ll also be able to purchase pottery, water coloring paintings and floral design displays for purchase at the open house.

“Although our customers come for the ornaments, they can also do other Christmas shopping when they come through,” Cindy said.

This year’s open house will be from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Dec. 4-20 at the Barker’s farmhouse on the Brown Homestead farm, 5815 Brown Road, Oxford.

Share this article