Christmas Designs

Twisted Cheer

Paul Smollen from La Croix United Methodist Church in Cape Girardeau, MO brings us these lovely fabric Christmas trees. (originally posted February 2012)

They 2011 Christmas design was centered around an organization called Feed My Starving Children. They wanted a non-traditional Christmas tree and the FMSC food boxes to keep their focus on the mission of providing food for the needy.

So their construction team made a 16’ tall tree from 1”x4” lumber with a hinging disc at the top which all the upright boards were attached to. They tapered the top of the boards to come to a point, wired them together and braced the bottom. They attached a safety cable to the top and wrapped the entire teepee-like structure with alternating green and red fabric stapled to the framework. Then they topped the tree with a 20” Moravian star from Ebay, and lit the whole thing with a combination of Studio Spot 250, Technobeam fixtures and Martin Mac 500’s for the rest of the projected pattern textures.

They up-lit the white curtains at the back of the stage with Elation TriBrick fixtures. The curtains, which were 10’ wide, were gathered to a point at the top and tied off.

Each week they added more strands of hanging lights to which their team had soldered random length extensions so we could power them with a single circuit. They were 11w clear bulbs turned way down to a candle-flame look.

Rubber Band Ball Shells Kris Krinkle

4 responses to “Twisted Cheer”

  1. Rev. Regina Briggs says:

    Wow I am so blessed and honored to recieve this gift and will use it to the Glory of God. Thank you in advance and bless you many times over.

  2. Deb Parish says:

    I love this design and will using this for our Christmas stage set this year. Could you give me a close up of the hanging lights and how you placed them? I want to be able to give clear direction to the lighting team. Thanks!

  3. Deb Parish says:

    We are going to use this design for our stage set and need a little more instruction on how to construct the tree made with the 1×4’s.

  4. Grace voltz says:

    What kind of fabric was used? Was it sewn together or one large piece?

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