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Strange 'creatures' invade Porcupine Mall (5 photos)

Local-crafter Vera Baran brought a box of a little creatures called 'kisses', or perhaps 'Max-A-Wakkas', to the Porcupine Mall on the weekend

The Porcupine Mall was invaded recently with these... er... things.

At the mall’s recent craft fair over the weekend, crafter Vera Baran had a box of strange googly-eyed creatures for sale, and no one could really tell what they were.

“They’re thingies. Maybe a monster? A little monster thingy!” said Ava, 7, who went to the mall craft show with her mom and little sister Hayden, 4.

“It’s a Max-A-Wakka!” said Hayden and no one knew what she was talking about.

The objects looks a bit like animals, maybe birds, but are they?

“Who knows,” said Baran. “If you want to call them creatures you can. People really don’t know.”

“They’re so cute,” said Morgan, 11, who bought one of the strange little objects.

Her mother asked, ‘what will you do with it?”

“I don’t know,” replied the daughter. “They’re cute and fun, I’ll put it in my room.”

Baran informally calls them ‘Kisses’ because she used to sell them with little Hershey’s Kisses chocolates inside them.

“They’re little novelty items that give you a good little laugh and when you squeeze the cheeks the mouth opens up. They look almost like the Angry Birds don’t they?” said Baran.

She used to hold the little objects up and say “squeeze my cheeks and I’ll give you a kiss".

She started making them about five years ago and spent, she figures, weeks worth of hours making hundreds of them out of wool tied pieces of plastic canvas with wobbly crafting eyes (you know the kind from kindergarten) glued on.

No ones really sure if they have a function although Baran said some people have put ribbons through them and hung them up as Christmas ornaments.

She has three oversized shoe boxes full of them at home and she expects to sell out of all those little objects in about a year – they’re only 50 cents each.

If you didn’t get one at the Porcupine Mall over the weekend, don’t worry, Baran’s at all the major shows in the area.

“I think adults get a bigger kick out of them then the kids do,” she said.