Amanda McCall loves doing custom designs on her wood-burned pieces, including plaques, clocks, decor and more.

While her Tinytown Pyrography booth was set up during the Seymour Oktoberfest, McCall was approached by Alicia Froedge about making some pieces to sell in the Jackson County Visitor Center’s gift shop, which features handmade work by local residents.

That connection also led to Froedge giving McCall another opportunity: Making Jackson County’s ornament for a Christmas tree at the Statehouse in Indianapolis.

The visitor center recently received an email about Indiana First Lady Janet Holcomb and the Indiana Statehouse Tour Office planning Hoosier Holidays at the Statehouse — 92 Reasons to Celebrate.

While discussing the theme for this year’s celebration, Holcomb said she would like to recognize each of the state’s 92 counties. When a similar theme was chosen nearly 20 years ago, the Statehouse trees were adorned with ornaments representing each county. Holcomb wanted to do that again this year.

The visitor center thought McCall was the right person for the job.

“I thought it was an honor,” the Brownstown woman said, smiling.

Each ornament on the tree will highlight special people, places or things within each county. The ornament can’t be larger than 8 inches and must be mailed or dropped off by Dec. 1.

Froedge gave McCall a watercolor picture of the Jackson County Courthouse in Brownstown with the words “Jackson County Courthouse” and “Brownstown, IN” across the bottom next to a filled-in image of Jackson County with a heart in the center.

It only took her a couple of hours to complete the ornament, which is made of wood sourced from Jackson County.

“I turned it into a grayscale, then sent it to my wire tip wood burner,” McCall said. “A laser will give you more of a pixelated image, so if you look at it from farther away, yeah, you still see the image. What mine does is it literally goes with a grayscale, so I can do pretty much exact replicas of the image I get.”

She said it works like a CNC machine.

“I manipulate the photo and then send it to the machine, and I do that on detailed images because no one would pay me to do it by hand,” she said, smiling. “The only things I do by hand are simple signs and stuff because I can get them done pretty quick.”

While she sources most of her wood from Brickyard Lumber in Medora, McCall said the piece of wood for the ornament didn’t come from there. Still, it was cut in the county.

“I source everything I can out of Jackson County if I can,” she said.

She expects her ornament to stand out on the Statehouse tree since it’s made of wood.

“I’m just more proud because I know no other county is going to have anything like it,” McCall said.

She said she’s pretty pleased with how the ornament turned out, and the visitor center is happy, too.

“I just saw it and it’s fantastic,” said Jordan Richart, the center’s public relations manager. “I think it’s going to set Jackson County apart from a lot of the other counties. I think in general, we set ourselves apart with how great the quality of life is here, but obviously, that’s able to translate to this ornament that once again ties our history and a relic in our community, the courthouse.”

Brownstown was selected as the seat of government for Jackson County in 1816 — the same year Indiana became a state — and the courthouse was constructed between 1870 and 1873 and renovated in 1910 and 1911. Earlier this year, the Brownstown Courthouse Square Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

“A central part of our county is our beautiful historic courthouse, which in my biased opinion is the most beautiful and appealing one in Indiana, so we really wanted to feature that,” Richart said of choosing the building for the ornament.

“(McCall’s) unique talent isn’t something that very many people can do, and it’s not something you see very often,” Richart said. “We really like just the way it looks. This wood feature portrays Jackson County’s natural landscape and beauty in combining the historic courthouse and our natural landscape. The visitor center is just thrilled … to participate in something like that in the state (and) to have something to be really proud of that she has made.”

He also said including the courthouse on a Statehouse Christmas tree ornament is appropriate because the state’s laws come from Indianapolis and are interpreted and enforced in the county.

“It’s cool that connection is there, as well,” Richart said.

Being chosen to make the ornament also was special to McCall because she has lived in Jackson County since she was 2 and now lives three blocks from the courthouse.

The watercolor courthouse drawing also is featured on a puzzle available for purchase in the gift shop at the visitor center, 100 N. Broadway St., Seymour. McCall’s handmade products, including cutting boards, coasters and wine stoppers with ZIP codes of Jackson County communities, will soon be available there, too.