When you first visit Casa de Los Gigantes (House of the Giants) website, you can’t help but smile. The home page greets visitors with a small selection of lovely photographs that are off-set with Picasso-like abstract drawings of faces with huge eyes. It’s not the imagery that makes one smile, but the feel good story behind Casa de los Gigantes.
Founded almost fifty years ago, Casa de los Gigantes is one of the first stores in Antigua to offer hand-made goods from the highlands of Guatemala. The company, according to its website is, “committed to developing, producing and promoting hand-made products for today’s world.”
The folks who are a part of Casa de los Gigantes are a family of artisans who make numerous hand-made items from indigenous natural resources and from recycled goods. The company’s mission is to, “Bring human warmth to an increasingly impersonal and cold world and at the same time gives our artisans a dignified way to earn a living.”
The company has its own production facilities for furniture and home accessories made from native pinewood and plantation teak. To help artisans find a workspace Casa de Gigantes offers store space where handcraft producers are able to display a variety of crafts like textiles, woven goods, pottery and stone carvings.
Of the items sold at 12 Small Things by HAND/EYE, the avid home cook who has a yen for entertaining will adore the beautifully carved serving spoons made from the coffee bush. Guatemalan artisans carve these beautiful spoons and other treasures from coffee bushes once they no longer bear any fruit. Apart from the skilled craftsmanship, the spoons are unique because of their distinctive wood grain. The spoons are sold as a set of two, and measure eleven inches by two and half inches.
For more information about Casa de Los Gigantes, please visit www.casadelosgigantes.com. To purchase the serving spoons or any other product, please visit 12 Small Things by HAND/EYE , www.12smallthings.com.