Christmas Designs

Pallet Skyscrapers

Matthew Kunkel from Faith Lutheran Church in Troy, Mi brings us this huge use of pallet wood. (Originally posted June 2014)

This was their Christmas 2013 Stage Design. It all started with an idea off of Mountains and Stars and a few other pallet stage designs. They wanted to create a full coverage design for their stage area that incorporated the large stained glass cross. They knew we wanted to try using pallets and lanterns of some kind.

The pallet wall/towers were a series of 8′ by 10′ frames made from 2x4s and then covered in pallet deck boards. They had their resident carpenter come in to build the frame outlining the stained glass cross. Each section was suspended by 1/4 in. black powder coated cable wrapped around an eyebolt that they put through the bottom 2×4 of the frame.

The lanterns were mason jars with 100 light strands inside and suspended by black powder coated 1/16 cable. They displayed them in three tiers back to front in varying lengths of cable.

Finally, the finishing Christmas touch was the manger and of course the trees they had from our past seasons to light and display. They slightly modified the back of their manger with pallet boards to tie it into the new design. They had to buy the frame wood and the cables, but the pallet wood was all picked up for free. The makings of the lanterns were also bought in bulk and assembled by them.

Christmas down

Christmas service1

Cross Closeup

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Lanterns in the sky

looking up

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3 responses to “Pallet Skyscrapers”

  1. Cathy Perry says:

    This looks so pretty. How did you run the electricity to the lantersn to light them?

    • Steve Davis says:

      Hi Cathy. We ran each row of lanterns on a separate circuit which we have wired into our fly space. From there it was literally a web of individual black extension cords zip stripped to 1/16″ black powder coated aircraft cable dropped down to each lantern. The cables were secured at the top with dollar store carabiners attached to our fly space grid, and secured at the lanterns to eye bolts bolted to the lids of the mason jars. In all we had roughly 10 lanterns per circuit and 3 circuits of lanterns. Extension cords were our friends.

  2. Denise says:

    What are the dimensions of your wooden manger scene?

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