First up is the quilt. Lola...Again! made the quilt, Joanna at Designs by Laura Jo quilted it, and Colton's grandma bound it for us. She used the black ribbon with skulls that Lola put on the quilt top. It turned out so awesome.
Joanna quilted flames on the quilt to go with the theme of the fabric.
Lola also put on some of the flame ribbon.
Colton's grandma helped us out some more by making the tree skirt and both of the stockings for the display. Joanna quilted those, too, again in a flame pattern. The tree skirt has red minkee for binding and flame ribbon on the edge. It looked really cool.
Monday, November 30th, was decorating day for the Festival. We loaded up Angie's car with most of the boxes.
We had a TON of stuff to take with us! The tree went in Diana's truck, and Joanna hauled up everything else that wouldn't fit.
Colton's grandpa helped us get the tree ready by attaching the rebar, PVC pipe, and the self-tapping screws. The Festival of Trees have some pretty specific directions when it comes to reinforcing your tree. Everything has to be just right or they make you fix it before you can check your tree off with them. They do this so that they don't have to worry about it breaking when it's getting delivered. Everything has to be secured to the tree, and the tree has to be reinforced so that all the Festival does is wrap it in a huge plastic bag, load it up, and deliver it to the lucky new owners.
We are finally at the Festival! It took us most of the morning/afternoon to prepare the tree and put half of the lights on it (we bought a non-prelit tree, oops!) before leaving to go to Festival.
Angie and her husband decorating the tree. After several trips to Lowe's and Wal-Mart, we finally got everything we needed to light the tree and were able to decorate it fairly quickly after that.
Diana's husband also came to help us. Here he is, posing with some of the decorations.
Diana and Angie, decorating the tree. It's starting to come together at this point.
The final layout! We finished right at 7 PM, just as they started to kick everyone out! WHEW! It was close, but well worth it.
Doesn't our tree look so cool?! It was the brightest one on the aisle.
We set the Rock Band 2 drums and guitar up, with Colton's picture in front of it. Everyone who came up to us as we were putting the Rock Band 2 stuff up said how cool they thought ours was. We agree! This tree/space is so Colton!
Here you can see the two gamer chairs, the XBOX 360, the quilt and the two stockings. On the side of the photo you can see the finished edge of the tree skirt.
All checked off with the aisle workers and ready to go home! This was one of my favorite spaces at the festival (and I'm not just saying that because it was our space). It was so bright and vibrant and DIFFERENT.
Here are three of the ladies from Colton's Angels: Angie, Joanna, and Diana. Thank you to everyone who helped make this tree happen this year. Thank you to everyone who donated money to our Quilt Show Raffle in August. Because of your donations, we were able to purchase the XBOX 360, the chairs, and Rock Band 2. Thank you to Shasta at Gracie Lou's, who donated the skulls and flame ribbons. And thank you to everyone in Colton's Angels. Without you ladies, this group would not be as successful as it has been.
What happened to our tree after we left? Well, I have some good news for you:
IT SOLD!!!!
We found out through Festival of Trees' Facebook page that someone purchased our tree. We were so excited. We were even more delighted to hear that they were then donating the tree to the Ronald McDonald House. We found out the next day, from the lady who purchased it, that they had called the Ronald McDonald House to tell them about their donation, only to find that recently their XBOX had broken, and ours was a much needed replacement!
We are so happy to know that our tree is going to people who really needed it. Thank you so much to whoever purchased it!
For more pictures of trees at the Festival, please click on the Facebook page link above. They had so many great donations this year! Festival ended Saturday night at 10 PM. We are already planning a tree for next year, so if you weren't able to make it this year, please come next year.
If you would like to donate directly to Primary Children's Medical Center (all proceeds from Festival of Trees went to PCMC) then please go here for more information on how to donate.
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