Caleb Volek of Uniontown poses with one of his mummified fairy creations, seen on the Fox television game show “Snake Oil.”

When Caleb Volek was 8, he visited a “Ripley’s Believe It or Not” museum.

From shrunken heads to Komodo dragon skeletons, the Uniontown man found himself captivated by the carnival sideshow-like oddities inside.

“Things like that fascinated me,” Volek said. “I wanted to have a collection of that for myself.”

Through his Etsy shop WendigoOddities, he’s also providing a way for others to collect oddities. Recently, his artwork – specifically mummified fairies – were featured on the Fox game show “Snake Oil.”

“One day I was grilling outside at the beginning of summer, I went in to check email and saw one that said ‘television opportunity,’” Volek said.

His first thought was that it was a scam, so he did a little digging.

“I looked up the person who sent it and found out she was a casting director,” he said.

He responded, and the casting director asked him to send two of his items – a male mummified fairy and a female fairy – to be featured on the game show.

Hosted by David Spade, “Snake Oil” has contestants and their celebrity advisors look at a number of off-the-wall products. The task? To determine if the product is real or fake.

Volek’s fairies were featured on this season’s ninth episode, which aired Dec. 7.

“It was really cool,” he said. “I grew up watching David Spade movies and to see him quipping about how my fairies are creepy, it’s just an interesting thing.”

Volek started creating his own oddity-inspired art in 2016 when he made a Feejee Mermaid, which is a torso of a monkey attached to the back half of a fish.

“I found one video of a guy showing how to make it on YouTube,” Volek said and after he attempted to do it himself, he was pleased with the result. “I decided to do more, and it snowballed from there.”

The 2011 graduate of Albert Gallatin High School said he went through a lot of trial and error with making the sculptures before he launched his Etsy shop.

Other features in the shop have included hand-crafted monkey paws, mummified imp demon heads and preserved skin bearing tattoos.

“Ultimately, the goal of what I make is to temporarily suspend disbelief,” Volek said, adding that he not only creates a sculpture, but also gives each a story and designs their displays. “You know they’re not real, but it’s cool to put your eyes on something and say it looks like it could be real in another world.”

His items started picking up in popularity, and the timing for Volek couldn’t have been better because when COVID-19 hit in 2020, more people started shopping at home. He suddenly had enough free time to make his items and meet the demand because he lost his job as a warehouse worker.

“I do this full time now,” Volek said, adding that the saying of if you love what you do, you’ll never work a day of your life is true. “I’m thrilled to do it every moment.”

The biggest sellers of his creations depend on the time of year. During the holidays, he saw a big demand for his Krampus nutcrackers and the rest of the year, he’s making his popular mummified fairies.

After the fairies appeared on “Snake Oil,” Volek said their sales spiked.

“They sell around $150 (each), and I had about 15 orders in the next two days,” he said.

While the show didn’t pay him for the mummies he sent, Volek doesn’t mind.

“That’s the kind of advertising I can’t pay for out of pocket,” he said.

His Etsy shop now bears an “As seen on the Fox show Snake Oil!” tag, and that’s compensation enough, he said.