Paper Bag Palm Trees

Why, Oh Why did it not occur to me to take some pictures of these palm trees in progress?  Silly, I know!

Pool Noodles are the secret to making palm trees.  I taped two pool noodles together end to end with duct tape.  Then I spray painted them brown.  Each tree took about 100 lunch size paper sacks.  I cut the bottoms off of all of them and then smooshed them down together.  I slid the bags onto the pool noodles until I had the whole thing covered.  The bottom and top bag got taped onto the pool noodle with masking tape and kinda scrunched around to cover up the tape.  After that I took them outside and sprayed a little brown paint on them to give them a bit of texture.

The palm leaves required 24 inch florist wire, hot glue and tissue paper.  I cut the paper in half and laid the two rectangles end to end overlapping a little bit.  Then I ran a generous bead of hot glue down the length of the paper starting about an inch from the end and embedded the wire in it.  It took two pieces of wire for each one that overlapped in the middle and stuck out a few inches on one end.  Then I glued the other piece of tissue on top over the same glue line.  Next, I fringed the sides of the palm fronds.

I used fishing twine in the top of the pool noodle to hang them from the drop ceiling.  Then I jammed the wires into the hole in the end of the pool noodle and used more fishing line to position the fronds.

Clear as MUD!

Waterfall

When we last visited the Children's Church, the waterfall was a flat, one-dimensional painting on the wall. 

After wrestling several pieces of 2 inch styrofoam insulation into submission we have a 3-D waterfall with "water" and some fancy greenery.

One larger sheet of foam was carved out with a hot knife to match the general shape of the waterfall.  Then layers of foam built out the actual bed of the stream and smaller pieces of foam formed the front of the rocks. 

The actual water is made from three layers of fabric.  A more opaque base is fluffed up with blue net and then covered with a shimmery, sheer layer of fabric.  A string of Christmas lights under the fabric adds a bit of sparkle. 

Rocks carved from foam and some faux ferns make it look a little more real.

Makes me want to go find a nice quiet waterfall to sit beside and relax from this crazy Holiday season.  I need to find a recording of rushing water!  Won't be able to sit around long....I'll have to run to the potty!

Palm Trees and Some Sort of Greenery

Next step.... Palm Trees. 

Now these are just the background palm trees, mind you, but I thought that they turned out pretty cool.   I checked out my Donna Dewberry books before I started to give myself a refresher in palm tree painting.  Just like I thought I remembered!

Stems?  Trunks?  Whatever you call the bottom of palm trees.

Now we have some leaves or branches or maybe they are palm fronds?  Whatever!  The green things at the top.

The trees on the other side.  See how they are nicely covering up the funky shrubs.

 Some little palm trees back there on that hill in front of the volcano.

Some sort of foliage growing around the waterfall.



Next we will get to the 3-D stuff. 

I promise. 

Can't wait to show you the waterfall!  I wish I had taken some pics of the thing in progress.  If anyone wants to know how I did it, it will really prove the point about a picture being worth a thousand words.

Where the Heck Have I been?

A tropical island, of course!

OK, so not really, but I have been spending a great deal of time creating one for the Children's Church room at my pastor's pastor's church an hour and a half away.

He wants a tropical island and a real pirate ship that the kids can climb on with a slide and a puppet stage! 

A man with a vision. 

Makes my heart go pitter patter, I tell ya!

It started out as a great big room (when I say big, I mean a 40X40 foot room with a stage and a sink and counter) with pretty, puffy white clouds painted all over.  While the clouds were beautiful, they just weren't as animated as I imagined that they should be.

I took purple and blue paint and a sponge and added some dimension to them.  After two days on a scaffold sponging and foofing and glittering, we had some pretty nifty clouds.

That was the first step among many!  But next, I had to go SHOPPING!  Oh, Happy Day!  Shopping at craft stores to create a whole tropical island pirate hide-away. 

Think palm trees and parrots and treasure chests and monkeys and waterfalls and...

Can't wait, can you?  I'll show you some more tomorrow!