Completed tree and set up pictures...

Yesterday was tree set up day! Anyone who was doing a tree for the Festival of Trees had from 7:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m. to get their tree 100%finished. I had the majority of mine done beforehand so we didn't arrive to the venue until noon.

Here's my brother, Clint, and one of my dad's employees, Anthony. They carefully loaded the tree in a trailer and drove it up for me. My mom and dad rode with me in my car.

Clint rigged up a pretty good system to get the tree there. He had it suspended with pipes and rope so it never laid flat on its side. I was amazed that not a single thing fell off the tree. I must have done a great wiring job to manage that feat.

The festival provided giant rolling carts to get everything from the unloading area to my tree spot. Of course I unknowingly grabbed a cart with a flat tire. Oh well. It was loaded and we were taking it!

Here's our spot! Anthony and Clint unloaded it, centered it and made a few adjustments. I had to re-fluff everything and make a few adjustments. It traveled a lot better than I thought it would!

Here I am! Just adding some final things on the tree. See the scary mannequin on the right side of me? That thing was terrifying!! I told my mom to make sure she got it in the picture. It's supposed to be the virgin Mary holding baby Jesus.

It goes to the lucky (insert sarcasm here) person who gets the winning bid on this tree.

I'm sorry but it's CREEPY!!

Argh! Baby Jesus' face is peeling off!

Lots and lots of people setting up.

 

Here's my tree! Still in the works but getting there.

My dad became my personal wire cutter.

There it is! Done!

Look how close it is to the creepy mannequin Mary. Eeeeewwww....

A view from the side.

My mom and dad with our Wesley Tree.

All finished and ready to leave.

Whew! A lot of work but I'm happy with how it turned out.

Tree Progress...

I worked on my tree for Festival of Trees yesterday and today. I took some pictures along the way to show its progress.

Here are some of my piles of ornaments and decorations.

I divided all of the little forest critters into similar piles. Yep. They're all going on the tree.

 I started by wiring in all of the floral bunches and birds nests. This took quite a while. It's a good thing I had a lot of Christmas music loaded on my iPod.

This picture is a little blurry but all of the big bunches have fun pheasant feathers poking out of them.

I like how much fuller all of bunches make the tree look.

Here's one of the birds nests bunches. The nest is just above the pine cones.

So here's a picture of the tree before any of the bunches were wired in...

and here's the after. Keep in mind, the tree has to be decorated all of the way around. There is no front or back. Trust me... that's a lot of wiring things in! My fingertips are numb!!

Part of the tree entry rules say that any ornament has to have its top glued onto it so it doesn't separate and break during the delivery. So... I had to take the top off each one, glue it, put it back on and then wire it onto the tree. It was a lot of extra steps.

There it is on the tree!

A glimpse of a few of the felt ornaments.

Ken came down to where I was working to check on me. This ornament is his contribution to the tree. He glued it and wired it on himself. And no, I didn't move it. It's still there.

More progress...

 Another blurry picture... 

I decided to add these Christmas signs into the tree. They're on a stretched canvas and have little mountain scenes and quotes on them. They're going to be spread all around the tree, tucked into the branches and wired in. I'm adding gold ribbon to each to help make it look finished. This picture shows approximately where the signs will be.

Here are two of the 12 signs wired in and finished.

The tree is looking more and more finished. My mom and dad came down tonight to see how the tree looked. My dad talked me into stopping where I was and finishing everything tomorrow morning at the festival venue. I really wanted to get it all done tonight but I decided to call it quits. I can finish tomorrow. I'll have to readjust everything once the tree is moved - loading it in a trailer and driving it around is going to shift things and make it look less than perfect.

Did I tell you the tree topper is a rusty snowflakey-star thing? I like it. It seems like it fits in with the woodsy theme to me.

This is my older brother Clint. He isn't too thrilled with me right now. His job is to get my tree where it needs to go in one piece. He came to the warehouse tonight to scope out the tree. He wishes it wasn't decorated - or even put together for that matter.

Tomorrow is decorating day. I'll go up with the tree, make all of my finishing touches and then turn it over to Primary Children's Medical Center. I'll take more pictures, of course! For now, I'm off to bed.