"Everyone Deserves a Christmas Tree" or "My Trip Down the Minature Rabbit Hole"

After Thanksgiving several years ago, I was eating at one of my favorite local restaurants in Greensboro, NC, I asked the waiter if he had his tree up yet.  He told me that he did not, and that most likely he wouldn’t due to space and the time putting up and then having to take down the tree.  As I drove home, I was bothered and I kept on thinking ‘Everyone deserves a Christmas tree.’

Over the next few days I decided I would make a miniature tree for him, fully lit and decorated so all he had to do was plug the tree in.  I found a 24 inch tree at one of the local craft stores.  The tree have ‘needles’ about 0.50" long and about 50 branches.  I found several packs of battery powered ‘rice’ lights, along with a 35 bulb strand of LED lights, and I started to work.

I took the wrapping from around the bottom and secured the tree base to a 12x12x0.625" piece of plastic cutting board.  Fluffing the tree branches out to give an appearance of a ‘natural’ tree, I started securing the lights to the branches with small pieces of 26 gauge floral wire.  Just like larger trees, it is best to have the lights on when doing this.  The LED lights were a ‘cool white’ with a bluish tint and very bright, so I positioned them along the trunk of the tree.  With the long ‘needles’ and fluffed branches a gentle cool glow would be emitted from the center of the tree.  Next I positioned the battery-powered ‘rice’ lights.  Dividing the tree into quarters, I strung the lights along the branches, wiring them into place, one bulb per branch near the tip.  Each pack of ‘rice’ lights had 20 bulbs so I had a few left over when I reached the longer, lower branches.  The ‘rice’ lights gave off a ‘warm white’ light.

 

















 

After the tree was lit, I started the ornaments.  I had decided when I started I would want the ornaments to be ‘in scale’ with the tree, so for a 2-foot tree the scale would be 1:4 if most trees are around 8-foot.  Most globes on trees are between 65mm to 80mm (2.5" to 3.25"), so the globe ornaments would need to be between 15mm to 20mm and any ‘fancy’ ornaments no larger than 2" in length.  Many of the ornaments were simple beads on head pins with bead caps and 3mm metal beads on beginning and ending the assembly.  A simple loop at the end and the ornament was done. 

 





Many of the ‘fancy’ ornaments were created in similar fashion except many did not have the bead caps.  Teardrop glass beads, graduated faceted beads as well as druks (smooth beads) were used to create miniature ornaments to be utilized in filling out the tree.

When I was at the wholesale show earlier that year, I had bought several dozen pair of earrings.  Since I get much of my inspiration from jewelry, I decided to use the dangle earrings as ornaments.

  

















 




Because of the long needles, I needed the ornaments to be lower than the needles to swing freely.  To remedy this I used small pieces of chain to suspend the ornaments, freeing them from the needles and used ring sized Memory Wire as ornament hooks.

After putting the tree topper on the tree, the total height was 30 inches.  Knowing I didn’t want to have to take the ornaments off the tree to box everything up, I made a box around the tree.  “Gator Foam” are sheets of PVC, and having ‘dumpster dived’ at a friends plastic company I had plenty of scrap, some as large as I needed.  Using Duct tape, I was able to construct a container which could be lifted off over the tree.  I wrapped a piece of the PVC to act as the bottom of the box and using double-sided carpet tape I secured the tree base to the piece of PVC.  I wrapped the rest of the box, made a bow and carefully placed the present in my car for delivery.

With the help of the manager of the restaurant, I was able to turn on the battery powered lights, put the top of the box over the tree and sneak into the restaurant and placed the tree on the waiter’s open table.  When he started lifting the top off, the light started spilling from the gap.  The restaurant was rather dark and the light drew everyone’s attention.  From several tables I heard “oooh”s and “aaaah”s and the waiter was speechless.  When he regained his composer he asked me why I did it, and I simple told him “Everyone deserves a Christmas tree.”  We took the tree over to the bar and plugged in the LED lights and I went back to the table to have a very good meal.  Many of the customers and employees at the restaurant wanted to know where I had bought the tree.  When I told them I had made most of the ornaments, several asked if I could make one for them and how much would I charge them.  Having no idea how much I spent in time and materials, I declined to name a price.

Since then, I have continued to give him a set of new ornaments for the tree each year.  This year I will most likely have to give him a new tree, as all the ornaments are getting very crowded on one tree.  He has told me, he still has the box I made, and keeps the tree inside until November 1st when he pulls out “his” tree and it sat on either the coffee table or dining table.  He will keep the tree out until January 1st when he turns off the lights, puts the box back over the tree and places it back into storage.

Last year, I made two additional miniature trees, one for charity the other for a co-workers wife, and both were well received.  The tree I used (and will continue to use as long as I can) have shorter ‘needles’ with more branches and concrete bases.  To widen the base, I use pint take-out soup containers and fill the base with gluing compound until it covers the base.  Continuing to use a mixture of AC and DC powered lights, I will attach lights with pieces of floral wire.  I have found 50-light strands of AC powered ‘rice’ lights and I will put 4 packs of the 20-light strands of DC-powered lights.  Using the same techniques as before, I make miniature ornaments for the tree.  The trees last year had 130 lights and over 180 miniature ornaments.