This question came in mid-December 2018 from a potential Etsy customer. First question I asked in return... What the heck is a Moose Shack?
My Etsy customer is married and she and her husband exchange Christmas ornaments each year. They asked the question after seeing my Chicken Coop ornament. He calls is wife "Chick" and she calls him "Moose". Thus they were now looking for Chicken Coop and Moose Shack Christmas ornaments.
Since it was mid-December there was no way I was going to be able to design and make a moose shack from scratch so I politely asked if we could work on it the following year. She was very kind and said she'd contact me the following year. In August my moose shack resurfaced.
I gave her the choice of the dog house or bird house shapes. We agreed the birdhouse would provide a better shack look. I then went back to my best Bullwinkle and Rocky memories (OK I'm dating myself), searched around on the internet, and came up with my Moose.
The result was a hit with my customer and was one of my most fun memories of the holiday season.
NEWS FLASH!!!! 2019 UPDATE.. Moose Munched by Lucky
In December 2019 I received a message from my Moose Shack owners. Their new puppy Lucky munched the moose nose right off the ornament! They were wondering if I could fix it. Here's a pic of the guilty party and the munched ornament:
Always up for a challenge I had them ship the ornament back to me so I could recycle or reuse as much as possible. Turns out that all it needed was a some new fencing, some paint, and of course a new nose. However, I could not leave the guilty party off the hook, Lucky is now memorialized on the back of the ornament....
Thanks to Lucky for my giggle for the 2019 season!!