About Us

We have been sisters since birth and doll makers since 1976. Although there have been good times in our lives and bad, we can see humor in almost every situation. To be able to laugh at ourselves is one of the greatest gifts we can be given. Our characters are not sculpted to intentionally look like any individual, but it is amazing how many people see friends and relatives in our work. Our aim is to make people smile and it is a great compliment when someone looks at our works and actually laughs out loud. How many people can say that about their work? We are pleased that men as well as women are attracted to our sculptures.

Most of our sculptures have polymer clay head and hands with soft fabric bodies. We never use molds of any kind in our artwork. Sculpting a doll head can take anywhere from 2 hours to longer than 2 weeks. We never know what is going to come out of a lump of clay. There have been times we started out to create one character and a totally different one emerged. As our characters develop, they start with the eyes and continue with the smile. We are never sure who it is until the character finally is dressed and the hair applied. It is at this point that the name of the character comes to us and we are introduced.

Eyes and other facial features on our sculptures are hand painted with acrylic paint. We design and sew all the costumes. We even find humor in that, since one of us loves prints and the other doesn't. That makes trips to the fabric store very interesting!

We hope that as you become familiar with our work, it will remind you of people and times that made you smile.

Beverly and Gerri Nostro
Nestlers by Nostro