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To enhance the tree-lighting celebration at the Luzerne County Courthouse one December, Sharon Lawrence dressed as Queen Elsa and ran up the grand marble staircase — reminiscent of the magically-made-from-ice steps the character climbs in the movie “Frozen.”
Kids in the audience were delighted, especially when she introduced Olaf, courtesy of her sister in a snowman costume.
Then there’s Halloween, when Lawrence dressed like a fortune teller and made predictions for young trick-or-treaters.
Another year, she stretched “a furry hand” through a temporary trap door to scare older kids in the entrance way to her Swoyersville home. She’s also been known to recruit friends to join her in dressing like zombies and dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller.”
Now that you have some idea of Lawrence’s abundant creativity, you won’t be surprised to learn she loves making crafts, especially the whimsical hats she has been selling at area craft shows since 2017.
“I think it speaks to everyone’s inner child,” Lawrence said. “The one who wanted to dress up in mom’s high heels and pearls.”
“I like seeing people smile and have fun,” added “the hat lady,” whose business is officially known as Gypsy Wolf Creations. “I like to give them joy and get them to open up, to get the real you to come out.”
While the crafter’s signature hats have feathers, netting and a large eye that you might think of as belonging to a cat or a dragon, her other creations sport any decoration from autumn leaves to pine cones to a plastic rat skeleton.
“I’ll name you all my skeletons,” she said with a chuckle. “I’ve got spiders, rats, alligators, frogs, mermaids, unicorns, dragons and scorpions. They all find their way onto a hat and give it more of a spooky flavor for Halloween.”
Sometimes, people find just what they want when they visit “the hat lady” at a craft show, as did a woman who spotted a hat decorated with a large toy bat, gauze wings outstretched from its plush body.
“I know that’s my hat,” the woman told Lawrence, explaining her co-workers at a local warehouse often tried to frighten her by “throwing things, making her think a bat was after her. She bought that to show them, uh-uh, she wasn’t afraid. She had a bat on her head.”
Other times, a customer might approach with a request, as did a couple who planned to attend an award ceremony.
The tongue-in-cheek hat Lawrence created for the man to present to the awardee was based on “A Christmas Story,” boasting ornament-size versions of the “leg lamp” the little boy’s father wins in that movie, along with the box marked “Fragile” and a sign declaring “A Major Award.”
“I put this fringe on the lamp,” she said, showing a photo of how she’d given the lampshade more of a skirt effect.
“The man wanted to wear something special when he presented the award, too,” Lawrence said, showing off a photo of another festive hat, this one brightened by a red reindeer with curlicue antlers.
“I tell people, if you would like a giraffe eating a peach, I will find one,” said Lawrence, who has been happy to donate hats to raise money for worthy causes, such as Dress For Success and the Electric City Aquarium.
The long-time crafter remembers making a Pinocchio nose as a kid and, as a student at Wyoming Valley West High School, creating life-size, 3-dimensional cardboard figures of Peter Pan and other Disney characters, to decorate the auditorium during a concert.
“They’re still in my mom and dad’s attic,” Lawrence said, musing “I should have been a costume designer.”
Instead, following advice to choose a “practical” career, Lawrence studied computer technology and worked in banking for 20 years before becoming the clerk for the Luzerne County Council.
Today, making hats gives her creative energy an outlet. She comes home, covers a couch with a sheet and gathers supplies — anything from delicate glitter to the clunky bolts, snagged from her husband’s tool area, that added a touch of Frankenstein to a Halloween hat.
“My husband (Bill Okuniewski) is a good supporter, even though his football couch is my work space,” Lawrence said. “He watches the games in the kitchen or up in the bedroom, God love him.”