Festival of Trees -2013 Tree

Last year my company created our first ever tree for the Festival of Trees. The University of Alberta Hospital Foundation is one of our major charitable recipients, as such, we figured we'd try our hand at a tree! 

Little did we know, that tree would end up taking 1st place and raised a fair deal of money at auction! Which is always amazing.

This year, we have it another shot with what I like to call our Industrial/Seussical Tree titled "Christmas Whimsy".

Here's a little photo journey of the creation of this year's tree:

The base of the tree is actually a tension-mounted floor to ceiling wine rack. 

At 7' with pre drilled holes (for the wine bottles) it was the perfect base! 

Next up were the "branches". In keeping with our industrial/construction vibe we found Electrical Conduit worked nicely. But since we wanted to light the thing a little differently, we opted to drill tons of little holes in each piece so that when illuminated it would kind of be like a pierced Moroccan lantern.

This was the set up for spray painting the branches. We went with a hammered silver spray paint. 

The next and most time consuming part was threading the lighting thru. In keeping with construction materials we chose rope lighting that was generously donated by Park Lighting!

It didn't photograph well (kinda flat? But was really cool when plugged in.

After that came the fun part:  Decorating!

Someone had selected some very Dr Seuss-like cartoony characters and spring and spike shapes which we fitting with our tall, narrow tree!

It started to take shape here! 

Next up, a tree skirt. We originally had a faux fur throw drapes around the base but not everyone liked it so it was veto'd for simply leaving it wood and spraying it silver to match.

Our tree topper was the last addition and boy does ours make a statement! From <a href="http://ikea.ca">IKEA</a> we yanked the lights outta this star and jammed our rope lighting up instead! It's definitely oversized but I like to think that that's how Dr Seuss would have liked it! 

When we got to the Shaw Conference Centre for drop off, we realized as soon as we set the tree on the white draping that our silver wood base was NOT special enough so a simple covering of snow and the addition of some lot presents and we were much happier! 

Here's how she turned out. Again, keep in mind it photographs flat but it quite stunning in person! 

As one of the only non-tree, trees, we really think it will be a standout! 

The gala is tonight so we have our fingers crossed that the tree will get bid on for a nice amount and raise a fair bit of money! Plus, we're obviously hoping the judges will enjoy it as much as they liked last year's tree! 

If you'll be checking out the festival this weekend, please check out our tree! Oh and of course leave me a comment trolling me what you thought of it in person! 

-Cindy