2023 Paper Moon display
When Shawn Durborow-Bowersox first considered leasing his Harrisburg storefront, the shop’s big picture windows were a selling point for him.
He saw the potential for beautiful displays like the vintage ones from a bygone era.
Since opening his shop, Paper Moon Flowers, in 2020, Durborow-Bowersox has filled his N. 3rd Street windows with whimsical displays that change with the seasons. There’s hardly a time that Durborow-Bowersox isn’t thinking about how he’ll decorate them.
“I think about it 24/7,” he said. “I like to think outside the box.”
He has a million things to do for his business, but still, visions of spring, summer, fall and winter-dressed windows dance in his head.
This time of year, the displays become even more elaborate as Durborow-Bowersox ramps up the magic.
Christmastime is big for Paper Moon Flowers and very, very busy. For Durborow-Bowersox, there may not be a silent night in sight as he partners with the Hershey Lodge, Hershey’s Chocolate World and the Hershey Story Museum, among other Hershey and Harrisburg locations, to decorate and provide floral arrangements. Visit Chocolate World, and you’ll see the giant Christmas tree that he adorned.
Even so, Durborow-Bowersox’s holiday windows are one of his favorite parts of what he does, and each year his creativity shines.
In 2021, the windows became Santa’s workshop with mechanized elves hard at work making toys. Handwritten letters to Santa swirled around the windows and wreaths and trees lit with twinkling lights filled the background. The following year featured penguins busy building igloos, roasting marshmallows and making snowballs.
This year, smiling mechanized mice in dresses and overalls wrap gifts and one even irons Santa’s pants.
“It’s an art form,” Durborow-Bowersox said. “People love my windows. It brings them joy.”
Behind the Glass
Each window starts out as a doodle in Durborow-Bowersox’s sketchbook.
“Most of all the windows I’ve done are in this book,” he said, flipping through the pages. “At 3 o’clock in the morning, I’ll wake up and think of things or I’ll jot something down when I’m at a red light.”
Most importantly, the displays have to be unique—something that makes a passerby stop and stare.
“I don’t want to be typical because your eye will go right by it and you won’t stop,” he said.
Once he has a plan in place, Durborow-Bowersox will work with a printing company to reproduce his larger-than-life images, like green clover leaves in March and retro Valentine’s Day cards in February.
He will source or make many of the display items himself, like the giant papier-mâché mushrooms that filled the windows one summer.
For Christmas, Durborow-Bowersox works with a man based in New York City who reproduces vintage, often mechanized, characters like those created by David Hamberger Inc., a company that made animated displays from about 1934 to 1996. Those vintage works of art brought holiday characters to life and now inspire Paper Moon’s Christmas displays each year.
For his 2021 Santa’s workshop windows, Durborow-Bowersox passed out blank envelopes to friends, strangers and customers, asking them to write “To: Santa” on the front. He quickly gathered enough to fill the windows.
“It’s a lot of work,” he said. “It’s not just like, here’s my window, boom, done. There’s a little bit of craziness. But it’s my passion.”
The process also takes Durborow-Bowersox months of planning. In fact, he already has next year’s Christmas windows planned.
“I’m always challenging myself to come up with something bigger and better,” he said.
Such Joy
Durborow-Bowersox has always been creative. When he was a kid, Christmas was a happy time of year for his family, as they always decked out their house with holiday décor. These days, he still finds time to decorate his own Harrisburg home.
Behind Paper Moon’s windows is a store that feels just as much like a holiday wonderland as the displays. The snug shop is packed full with flowers, plants, home décor and candles, with plenty of Christmas- and Hanukkah-themed offerings.
When you enter and exit the store, you may even notice the quiet music playing outside, tunes that fit with each season.
Durborow-Bowersox views the windows as a form of advertising for his small business. People love the displays, and they draw customers in, he explained.
But beyond that, it’s his passion.
It takes a lot of time, money and thought to produce the displays, around six each year, but Durborow-Bowersox loves it, and loves hearing from delighted customers.
“People take pictures in front of them all the time, and that’s a compliment,” he said. “It brings me such joy.”
Paper Moon Flowers is located at 916 N. 3rd St., Harrisburg. For more information, visit their Facebook page.
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