At the end of last month local businesses were invited to have a Christmas tree at the Our Lady's Convent chapel for their Christmas Fair which was to raise funds for a school in Africa ( we put details on our facebook and twitter pages).
We had 10 days to design a tree. There were many options, as long as it was tree shaped. We didn't want to place a normal plastic tree with plastic decorations as it was to advertise our business for a few hours and our products are an alternative to mass produced items. When designing our tree we had to keep in mind certain aspects
1. Safe and sturdy (children running about etc..)
2. Design had to be contained as
a) The tree would be in a chapel ( no Yoda on the top of the tree)
b) Our town is very provincial ( a locals word not ours) so don't go too far with the design.
So first things first we decided the decorations will take the most time. What to do? We had 2 options - cross stitch and working with some wood that we had due to pollarding ( this needs another blog). The wood needed to dry so we decided on cross stitch.
We remembered seeing some wonderful graffiti by a group of American artists. These artists painted on walls and buildings in bright colours certain uplifting phrases and sayings such as " Holler and hear my heartbeat" and " See me like I see you, beautiful". So we decided to cross stitch lines from traditional Christmas carols in a toned down graffiti style.
Our tree was made from boxes that we had ( if your item was sent in a box with a tiny hole, it was part of the tree!) and some left over wallpaper which was given to us. Our tree did stand out.
Whilest we were making our decorations and viewing the response to our tree (before we took the tree to the fair) we did get some quite unpleasant looks and comments ( locally may we add, we had an order and they have sold out). One comment was " cross stitch is what they do in The Towers"
One of us calls it "the grey coat syndrome".
She had a grey coat years ago. Fleecy on the inside and waterproof it was like a parka. In winter it was warm, in summer it kept the rain out and doubled up as great pillow when traveling. The over 50's hated it - " lovely girl, but that grey coat". The under 50's loved it - "can I borrow your coat I'm just popping out quickly please. Excuse me, where did you get your coat from".
Broadsheet magazines have raved about the return of cross stitch this year and sales speak for themselves. Everything will have positive and negative responses as long as the positives are from people who matter. There's no point in trying to please everyone. It's just down to "the grey coat syndrome"
We had 10 days to design a tree. There were many options, as long as it was tree shaped. We didn't want to place a normal plastic tree with plastic decorations as it was to advertise our business for a few hours and our products are an alternative to mass produced items. When designing our tree we had to keep in mind certain aspects
1. Safe and sturdy (children running about etc..)
2. Design had to be contained as
a) The tree would be in a chapel ( no Yoda on the top of the tree)
b) Our town is very provincial ( a locals word not ours) so don't go too far with the design.
So first things first we decided the decorations will take the most time. What to do? We had 2 options - cross stitch and working with some wood that we had due to pollarding ( this needs another blog). The wood needed to dry so we decided on cross stitch.
We remembered seeing some wonderful graffiti by a group of American artists. These artists painted on walls and buildings in bright colours certain uplifting phrases and sayings such as " Holler and hear my heartbeat" and " See me like I see you, beautiful". So we decided to cross stitch lines from traditional Christmas carols in a toned down graffiti style.
Our tree was made from boxes that we had ( if your item was sent in a box with a tiny hole, it was part of the tree!) and some left over wallpaper which was given to us. Our tree did stand out.
Whilest we were making our decorations and viewing the response to our tree (before we took the tree to the fair) we did get some quite unpleasant looks and comments ( locally may we add, we had an order and they have sold out). One comment was " cross stitch is what they do in The Towers"
One of us calls it "the grey coat syndrome".
She had a grey coat years ago. Fleecy on the inside and waterproof it was like a parka. In winter it was warm, in summer it kept the rain out and doubled up as great pillow when traveling. The over 50's hated it - " lovely girl, but that grey coat". The under 50's loved it - "can I borrow your coat I'm just popping out quickly please. Excuse me, where did you get your coat from".
Broadsheet magazines have raved about the return of cross stitch this year and sales speak for themselves. Everything will have positive and negative responses as long as the positives are from people who matter. There's no point in trying to please everyone. It's just down to "the grey coat syndrome"
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