With A Little Help From A Bean

An Ellie Bean, of course. ;-)

The place we normally cut our trees from has experienced drought for the last few years, so pickings are slim. And I'm waiting for larger trees to drop in price before I go after the one I have in mind for a new, big artificial tree. Using all my crazy Fesitval skills, I put together a new "table top" size tree for us.

If you can get a well done lit tree on clearance, do it. But I liked the look of this little tree that was unlit. One 100-light strand of twinkle lights was more than enough for it, but bigger trees can get pricey to light on your own.

Lay our everything you've collected for the project so you can see what you're working with. You might decide to nix some items and you may have forgotten what you purchased already.

Always make your own floral units. Way cheaper, more fun, and you can get more for your money when they're on sale. And before you say you can't do that, yes you can. You may need to practice and play for a bit, but I have faith in your creative abilities. Larger bushes of flowers or greenery can be cut apart to add a bit more oomph to a unit.

In this case, I had the gold magnolia leave and berries picked out, but decided to and sprigs from a frosted greenery bunch. Gave it more of a winter feel as opposed to fall.

Don't be afraid to think outside the box. The larger candy cane was actually a novelty pen that I found at the pharmacy 3 for $1. The smaller ones I aid a lot more for at Michaels. Also leave yourself some stem lengths so you have something to anchor the units to the tree branches.

Do a dry run for your topper to see what you like and don't like. Take some time to play around and have fun!

If you fall in love with a ribbon that isn't wired, make sure you pair it with a wired ribbon to make your like easier during bow-making. And make sure you have a good length of wire when securing the bow so you have leverage when placing it on the tree.

Always work with a single element at a time so you can get even placement. Work from the inside of the tree outward, because it's easier to layer that way. I preferred to add my feature ornaments last on this tree, because they're fabric and needed to be towards the ends of the limbs. I found the tutorial for the fabric ornaments here, and made them in several sizes. All of them came from 2 fat quarters of fabric.

Enjoy!

A Post With Text?!?

My crazy busy season is now complete. The fall burlesque show was last night and went very well. The bras held up (pun totally intended) beautifully during the ladies' dance number. The picture isn't the greatest, but cameras are not allowed backstage for obvious reasons. The Fuzzy Husband was working security for the show and was all the way in the back of the theater when he took this. There will eventually be better photos posted on Lock and Key Burlesque's Facebook page.

And today was the final day for our local Festival of Trees, which is a charity auction that benefits our local crisis nursery. This is the event that I helped out with a dollhouse for the past two years. Then I was asked to join the design committee for trees, which was amazing. I met and worked with some lovely ladies and I cannot wait for our next season of work to start!

Here's a few of the 47 trees that I helped design and create. The 8 wreathes, and "I lost count of" centerpieces were mainly worked on when I wasn't int he shop, so I don't have pictures of my own of them. We started work in late June and finished the last and largest tree last Monday.

I'm kicking myself for not being at the shop when we finished the tree these handmade ornaments went on. One of our committee made the prototypes and three of us made three sets (only 2 sets pictured) of these lovely card ornaments. They're high resolution scans of vintage Christmas cards that we layered with glittered cardstock. Was so much fun! Cookies and wine might have been involved as well.

Sadly, the economy here has been affected by a certain major employer moving jobs out of the area, so some of the larger trees did not sell. But this was the best looking Festival in the nine years that it's been held, so hopefully we will figure out the sweet spot with our new economic normal. Plus we're getting the word out to the public that the event even exists, so ticket sales to come in and view the trees will go up more and more.

Finally I started work on a new dress for myself. It just needs a hem at this point, but it has pockets!!!

An this is what happened when I was marking the dart for this bodice section. *cough* I didn't plan it, but the comedic effect was too fun not to share! ;-)

Now all I have left is to finish my dress, make the bolero that coordinates with it, make a waistcoat for a commission, and play with whatever strikes my fancy until the end of the year.

Just Burly Things...

... as in burlesque. ;-)

Remember, Remember...