Festival of Trees

I hope you don't think I am rushing the season, but I'm going to talk about Christmas Trees. Each year the Festival of Trees is the major fund raiser for Ann's Place in Danbury, CT. Ann's Place "provides help and hope to individuals and their loved ones living with cancer with a host of free professional services aimed at improving their quality of life during and after cancer". You can read more about the Festival here.

There are usually about 100 trees there from 9 feet tall to table top and everything in-between. Some of the trees are decorated by professional decorators, some are sponsored by businesses and some are donated by individuals, like me.

I have an extensive collection of thimbles of all kind, sterling silver, gold, vintage advertising, and kitchey travel thimbles. Several years ago I decided to make a thimble tree and I displayed it for many years in my former home. In this house I really didn't have a good place to display it, so I decided to donate it to the Festival.

I took all the ornamenst off, including the garland, and redecorated it. I needed to make more garland and I wanted to add some little white lights, which it did not have before. Notice the handmade quilted tree skirt.

I made 7 1/2 yards of garland using 3/16" satin ribbon and vintage shirt buttons, mostly white. I tapered one end of the ribbon to a sharply angled point and put Fray-check on it. That stiffened it so that I could use it as a needle to thread the buttons.

These 4 ornaments were part of a series of Alice in Wonderland, each sitting on a thimble.They were made by Hallmark and are dated, a new one each year.

The above four were also by Hallmark and dated. Again, a new one each year. I was so sorry when they stopped making them. 

You really should click on the pictures to get a bigger view and see some of the amazing detail on these ornaments.

There are several Christmas thimbles that I made into ornaments. I'm only showing two.

There are also several of these cute snowman spools that I wired to the tree. I used to place them at the bottom of the tree, but thought they were better as ornaments.  They are fairly heavy so I had to wire them on securely so as not to bend the branches down. There is another spool tree with green thread. You can see bit of it peeking out on the right side.

I made a few of these cute little angels out of everyday thimbles. They had different colors of hair.

Also several little spools wound with red or green embroidery floss.

This little fellow sits at the base of the tree. How cute is he?? Again made by Hallmark and called Threadbear. They only made them for two years. The other one is white with a patriotic theme. He's staying in my studio.

And the icing on top is this little angel ornament holding a candle. I put a glob of hot glue in the thimble and impaled it on the candle. It is an antique, sterling silver child's thimble, very small.

I'm calling my tree Sewer's Delight. I'm really sorry to see it go, but I made a commitment. If you live anywhere near Danbury, you can go to the Festival, Nov. 16-18 and bid on my tree. Wouldn't it look cute in your studio? 

I'm linking up with Off the Wall Friday.