It was to remind her of the guardian angel watching over her during that very difficult time. Harpe, who also had an angel pin, knew all too well what she was going through, having been diagnosed with the disease the year before.

Ellis had styled Harpe’s hair back when she had a beauty shop, and she and Gregory had gone to school together. Ellis and Gregory had also taken painting classes from Harpe.

Painting made great therapy during chemotherapy treatment, according to Harpe. “We couldn’t have gotten through it if we hadn’t had our paintbrushes and our wonderful class,” she says.

When their hair fell out, Gregory says the others never made them feel awkward about it.

“We could have sat in the painting class baldheaded for that matter,” she says. “We had this little Show and Tell. They would ask, ‘How much has your hair grown this week?’”

Last month, Harpe and Gregory, their treatment behind them and their hair grown back, joined with Ellis and Harpe’s mother, Louise Blackwelder, also a breast cancer survivor, to open the Christmas Cottage in Mocksville.

Located on Highway 601/Yadkinville Road across from Captain Stevens Seafood Restaurant, the cottage is open Wednesdays and Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Fridays from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sundays from 2 to 6 p.m.

There, Harpe and Gregory sell their handpainted crafts, Blackwelder sells her painted pecan resin figurines and Ellis sells her quilted angel pins and dolls.

They had talked for a long time about opening a shop together. “I would say something to Linda, and Linda would say something to Vauda,” Gregory says. “I saw the house, and we all wanted to do it.”

Ironically, the house was built by Blackwelder’s late husband’s uncle, Tom Blackwelder. She had visited Tom’s wife, Liza, in it when she was sick.

The house, recently bought from the Blackwelder family, had been leased for a tax service effective Jan. 1, but it was available until then.

“It just all fell into place,” Gregory says. “I really feel like it was meant to be.”

Phyllis Allgood, Glenda Beard, Gale Lanning, Sonya Whitaker and Aileen Steelman also sell their handiwork in the cottage, paying a percentage of their sales to Gregory, Harpe, Ellis and Blackwelder.

The four take turns working in the cottage, which opened Nov. 13 and will remain open through Dec. 23. “I’m there Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays,” Blackwelder says. “I really enjoy it. I love to do for people and make people happy.”

A total of 136 people dropped by to browse and enjoy a cup of hot apple cider at the Christmas Cottage’s grand opening on Nov. 20. Since then, Harpe says they’ve averaged 20 to 30 customers a day.

Fresh sourdough bread and baked goods are available on Fridays.

“We’ve worked very well together,” Gregory says. “We promised each other when we went into this business that this was not going to hurt our friendship at all. It has not. It has just increased it.”

The front door of the Chrismas Cottage takes you into theSanta and Snowman Room, which used to be the den, according to Blackwelder. In there, a nativity scene of Ellis’ quilted figures sits atop a display case of sterling silver jewelry.

Across the room, handsewn stockings hang on a mantel filled with decorations, including Blackwelder’s Santas and Lanning’s handpainted wooden egg characters.

A Christmas tree in the corner is adorned with a variety of handcrafted ornaments. Among them are angels made by Allgood and Lanning and clear balls showcasing Beard’s lighthouse drawings.

To the right is the Spring Room, where the soothing sound of a fountain greets customers as they scan the collection of Whitaker’s stepping stones, fairies and mermaids displayed with painted birdhouses and little tin buckets.

To the left of the den is the Antique Room, where Ellis’ angels are displayed along with Harpe’s handpainted denim shirts. In one corner is a collection of bookmarks and magnets painted by Glenda Beard of Salisbury, and in another is a display of Whitaker’s white earthenware clay pins.

Beard’s renderings of area churches and historic sites, Steelman’s baskets and Allgood’s handsewn crafts are displayed throughout the cottage along with numerous crafts featuring decorative painting by Gregory and Harpe.

“My husband says I will paint on anything that will lay still,” Harpe says. “I do fabrics. I do wood. I do murals. I’ve gotten into doing murals on walls this past year.”

Gregory, who paints such items as blazers, gourds, buckets and sleds, says she’s not an expert like her teacher.

“We keep taking from Linda, so we keep learning,” she says. “She can whip that stuff out as fast as anybody I’ve ever seen.”

The kitchen, hallway and even the bathroom are filled with crafts. “We were afraid we weren’t going to have enough stuff to put in here,” Gregory says, “and it’s just grown and grown.”

Blackwelder says they bring in new crafts every day. She and her daughter continue to teach painting classes at the Brock Center in Mocksville, and Blackwelder also teaches a class in Yadkinville.

Like Ellis, Sonya Whitaker started out making angels. “I’ve always thought each of us has a guardian angel,” she says. “I think there’s angels out there, just like the song, ‘There’s angels among us.’”

Whitaker, whose “Angelware” clay crafts have been featured in Country Living and on local television programs, also sculpts fairies and mermaids. Her latest creations are dragonfly stepping stones made from stained glass and cement.

“I went wild with the dragonflies because I just love them,” she says. “I put 15 on my carport and took the roof off and made an arbor. I just love anything that is different.”

Ellis began making quilted angels in 1994 after her daughter bought her one at a craft fair. “It was just glued to a cone shape,” she says. “Ilooked at it and said, ‘Hey, I can do this and do a better job.’ It just evolved.”

Since then, Ellis says she has lost count of the number of angels she has made from old quilts bought at yard sales and estate auctions. “The second year, I started numbering them,” she says, “and that year, I did over 300. I don’t even number them anymore.”

Each Vauda Ellis angel comes with a card quoting Psalm 91:11: “He will give his angels charge over you to guard you in all your ways.”

“That’s kind of like my little witness program,” she says. “It says they’re here.”

Because so many people buy her angel pins to give to cancer patients, Ellis decided this year to make a bald angel doll for people who lose their hair during treatment. “Ithought that would be so nice to have an angel they could relate to when they go through chemotherapy,” she says.

Ellis talked to Harpe and Gregory before making it. “They said they would have appreciated it when they went through that,” she says, “because you kind of have to have a sense of humor to go through something like that. If you don’t, you don’t make it.”

Ellis’ sister, Creola Rogers, wrote a little verse to go with the bald angels:

“An angel without hair created just for you

To guard you day and night and give you comfort, too.

She comes to strengthen and brighten your day.