Let’s start at the very beginning a very good place to start… I had a dream! Well a crazy big, time consuming creative idea for this years tree festival. This started with an email from the church saying as a festival of trees everyone had to have a tree this year. Well a tree for a tree festival – doh! Seriously we haven’t always actually had a tree over the years and some of you may remember past years displays, so I wanted to make one with a difference this year. The idea spun in my head got simplified and complicated several times as it does when you have an very visual ADHD brain. So having made it easier I made it harder.
It started with a social media plea for learners to come and help by writing on the back of old leaflets we were to recycle to form the tree covering. Here are some of what was created.
Next well obviously, we decided to hand print all of our collage materials, purple (best colour ever) for the main tree and shades of yellow/gold for the stars. This was fun but took a lot of time and space as you can see.
Then we constructed the base of the tree out of old delivery boxes. We made sections and assembled to create a three tier tree. Simple right? Not exactly as my plan involved holes too!
Then there was the collage stage.. sorry getting a bit bored of typing now if i’m honest, having already relabelled all the images to import into the website.
So after several (and maybe a few more) hours of sticky fingers and ripping up pretty paper we have collaged tree sections and collaged paper for stars. Any other person would have made this much simpler by now but not me no. So on we go…
So I cut double the number of stars we needed so they could be double sided. I painted the collage with PVA to create a sheen. I stamped on top of some with metallic ink. I hand stamped the words to go on the larger stars. Then I machine sewed all the larger stars including the one for the top of the tree. This was a bit noisy for my ADHD as anyone who has sewn through thick material will know it involves some banging. So the need for quiet for my ADHD gave me the silly idea to hand sew over 30 smaller stars for the smaller holes. This took about 5 minutes per star, 3-4hours total I think but I was watching bad 80’s movies so it could have been quicker tbh.
Alongside the tree construction we had been making various stay up devices for Santa with limited success. Until genius hit, lets stick a pole up his bum just like up the middle of the tree! Anyway Karen’s Dad came to the rescue and found a flash tripod that worked a treat and hey presto – Santa Stands.
Setting up this morning in the church has been hard work with the rain causing a slight defect in tree structure. Luckily I came prepared and managed to add some extra support to prevent the tree’s partial collapse. Anyway after climbing, saying naughty words in my head, resting in my damp clothes, being offered help by the lovely stewards as was in serious pain with my back, sticking the lights inside the tree in the wrong order as that was the only way it would work, arranging leaflets, remembering Rudolf, being saved by stewards again with the lend of 3 safety pins to secure Santa’s sack, drying Santa’s bobble after a puddle incident in the carpark, and finally we were done.
I would like to express my huge thanks to the lovely volunteers in the church this morning, who sadly were getting grief from other people setting up. The work you do is truly amazing and if you have any time to visit the festival in the next two weeks you will not regret it. It truly is the best way to start the festive season.
Thanks for reading until the end or at least looking at the pretty pictures, Karen x
P.s. the wonky nature if definitely intentional as a tribute to the crooked spire it is in and not a lack of patience to perfect the hanging mechanism further, well it was 50:50 tbh.