Kris De Keyzer makes handmade animals, using her own imagination and natural animal skins.
Her passion for crafting animals started with an artistic and social project for charity. In the year 2010, the art auction 'Parels van Zwijnen' was organized for the benefit of and in collaboration with a number of schools for special education in Ghent. Together with her son Francis they made a “lappenzwijn”, which was then auctioned. The dressed pig was popular with the public. That is how she discovered her hobby and passion, a passion which hasn’t stopped since. She is not very handy with pencil and brush, missing delicacy in her fingers. The pasting and cutting work is completely her thing, this in combination with nature and animals. With that combination she creates unique animals in real animal skins.
Kris expanded her collection and so became Floris Collection. In addition to pigs, the range is supplemented with sheep and cows. The pigs were soon followed by the smaller piglets, sheep and cows. She buys the body of the animal and edited that figurine with colored wax. After drying, the cutting and pasting follows for applying the skins, according to her own creation and fantasy. She works exclusively with real animal skins, of high quality and with exceptional colors. Pigs are made with various animal skins such as goat, sheep, rabbit, wild boar, or springbok. Some are also made of old fur coats. The sheep consist of real sheep skins and the cows of reindeer and sheep skin. Each animal remains a unique specimen and is always accompanied by a certificate. They are available in different sizes.
The handmade animals can be viewed in the permanent showroom. Kris regularly participates in various fairs. She notes that her creations make people happy. They like to see her animals in their interior. An animal is often given as a gift around Christmas and New Year. She also makes personalized animals according to the customer's wishes or perhaps even with grandmothers old fur coat. Her studio is free to visit every afternoon. She also has her own webshop.
Kris' studio can be found along Bruggestraat 105 in Zwevezele (Belgium).