DISPLAY My felt Christmas Trees
Act 1
So there I was, scrolling Facebook for pin info and I see a post about some trees being sold at HomeGoods. Immediately, I recognized that here was a solution to one of my frustrating display issues, but more about that later, Act 1 of this story is about finding the trees. I came up with a reason why we had to go by our closest HomeGoods, not really expecting to find a tree because it seems like they had been in the stores for several weeks at that point. But off we go and I find a tree! $49.99, but it would be so perfect for what I had in mind. We purchase the tree, take it home and start playing around with it. "The leaves are so thick! How can these display pins as nicely as the FB image showed?" I search for the OG post, and in the meantime read several other posts asking how you keep the pins on? Finally, I found the post and I find out there is not just one tree, but a whole forest of trees in different sizes! My mind begins to spin... The guy mentions a specific locking pin back from Amazon, and that the trees are displayed on lazy susans. Brilliant! I still have my suspicions on whether backs would stay on, but he had pics. I count leaves on the tree... 115... uh, oh... while that is an impressive number of pins for one display, what I need is moar!
I have been collecting the annual Resort Happy Holidays Christmas pins released at WDW, DLR and Aulani since basically the series started in 2004. I started with just the WDW hotels, but then decided to go for Hilton Head and Vero Beach too. More recently, I decided I wouldn't be happy without the Disneyland ones, and since I have been to Aulani, I couldn't leave those out, now could I. There have been 455 pins released so far with 24/25 new pins released every year. I started out with 4 large frames to display them, but they weren't *that* large and I ran out of space about 2012, and didn't know what to do. I couldn't keep buying frames that I never actually got hung on the walls. This is why the felt trees struck me so hard. I just needed more.
Thankfully, I live in a decent size metro area and I have reasonably close access to 4 different HomeGoods. There are even more if I wanted to drive, but someone posted their photo on the CO Facebook pin group and they had already said "they had gone to several stores," and there was a limit to how much driving, especially in more crowded and less familiar parts. Someone also mentioned that Marshalls also had the same stock. And each of these remaining 3 had a Marshalls close to it. I had bought the last one at the closest store, so I was hopeful one of my six potential candidates would come through.
Since the message had gone out on our local Facebook pin group the night before, I wanted to get an early start to hit the next closest, in case anyone else was motivated to go felt tree hunting. On my first stop, victory! There were 3 trees, the same size and color as the one I had already purchased. But the 4th tree was dark green! Ooh, I didn't know there were different colors. So not only were there 3 sizes of tree, it turned out there were 3 different colors: light green, dark green and red. I was really after one of the tall trees, but this store did not have one. They did however, have a different felt tree I had not seen and still haven't seen in any of the social media posts about felt trees I've seen since. I saw a person post their pins on a smaller version of tree, but not this one.
This tree wasn't the Martha Stewart brand, but had a "handcrafted in Nepal." Tag. I knew the large Martha Stewart tree was $149.99, but this tree was $199.99! It's construction is also different. It's felt leaves are single thickness, and larger. Better for displaying large pins, and the backs would clearly stay on these. The downside was the tree was a bit floppy on the top half, and after adding the weight of so many pins... I could not risk $200 on a tree that would collapse. So I purchase my dark green tree, hopeful I can still find a large tree, and if I can't I could return and buy one of the 3 medium light green trees later, and I head to the Marshalls where I struck out, before returning home. Now that I had 2 trees, fully committed to this project I bought 300 locking pin backs and a 2-pack of 10" lazy susans. This was $80. 2 trees at $55ish each with tax... this was starting to get expensive.
And I really needed more trees! If you are counting 2 trees with 115 leaves is still only 230 out 455 + however many future years. I make my rounds and unfortunately, not much luck. At stop #4 there is a single medium, light green tree. But I decide to pass because I still wanted the big one, and could return to my first stop if I couldn't find one. Stops 5 & 6 failed to pan out, so I start the drive back to store #1. While I had 3 different areas to check, there was still a lot of driving between the stores, so I had spent several hours on this endeavor. Only to get back to the first store and... drum roll... NO TREES! Devastation. Did someone else from Facebook beat me to the punch? Well, there was one tree. The $200 tree. And so I picked it up, and it was too big to fit in the cart. But a staff person said they would hold it up front. I looked around the rest of the store because I hadn't done that yet, and it's HomeGoods (money suck). I head to the register, pay for my tree and the other things I had picked up. Then the cashier who helped me, walked away from the counter, pulled out a full cart of items needing to be restocked, and in the cart I see 2 of the medium green trees. !@#$%& I did not really want to return the $200 tree, and then buy the other ones. Especially, since I thought the $200 tree would be better for displaying the bigger pins. But after the ridiculousness of my hunt, I decided that the Universe wanted me to have the $200 tree.
I pack it up, and on the drive home start thinking about what I could do to reinforce the tree. And I get home to explain to DH why I have a $200 tree. The lazy susan for this tree would be $35 and I needed even more locking pin backs... I starting thinking about how my Mom would reinforce wedding cakes with wooden dowels, and I thought maybe if I could open the seam of the tree, I could jam something in the upper half of the tree for more support. I am not a seamstress. The first Amazon order of pin backs and lazy susans arrive. I head to Michaels. This was at least a cheap trip. $6 on two different sized wooden dowels and a package of snaps to sew on to reseal the tree.
Act 2 -
After several days of starring, and contemplating ruining a $200 tree, I get my exacto knife, locate the seam and create a 2" gap in which I can insert my dowels. I had to cut those down too. Success? The tree seems sturdier. I sew on the snaps. Only to fiddle with it and my 3" gap, grows to 6". Uh oh. I *have* ruined a $200 tree! I realized my mistake, I had cut the seam, but I didn't tie off the ends, so the stitches just kept separating. I properly tie off the existing seam, and add another set of 2 snaps. I *HAVE NOT* ruined a $200 tree! But now I must wait for the second order, with the larger lazy susan for the bigger tree. The other issue is one of display and storage space? What do you do with a 4 foot tree filled with over 200 pins? I decided the perfect spot is our family room, on top of the file cabinet by my computer. DH carries the tree down, and right now, perfect! Let's see what we think in May, lol.
It's finally time to begin adding pins. Well, not yet. How do I break down 455 pins on 3 trees, with the small ones on the small trees, and the large ones on the big trees? Do I mix the WDW and DLR / Aulani pins? The next phase involved a lot of counting. Of leaves and pins, to make sure I had an accurate count. Which meant first I had to take photos of the pins missing from Pin & Pop, update my file of pins I still need because I don't have them all. Figure out how many empty spaces I had to account for. Summing various scenarios of "if I put these years on this tree will the math work out." One piece of paper, double sided with a bunch of notes... the math checks out. I only had enough room for the WDW pins, leaving space for the pins I don't yet own, and 2 years worth of future pins. The DLR / Aulani pins have to find another solution (hopefully more trees next year?)
Act 3
It's finally time to begin adding pins! For real! I started with the original light green tree, with the thick leaves. I had re-read the OG post and the guy said while he was able to use the locking pin backs, it came with a price. Their thumbs. So I figured if those trees were going to be hardest, I better start with those so I could take breaks and work on the easier stuff, in between. Holy @#$ he wasn't joking about how much pressure you need to squeeze to get enough post for the lock to grab onto! But oh, boy, do the trees look good! However, I realize that my plan of getting it done in 2 days would be optimistic. The first night I added one year of 20 pins, and my thumb did not like it one bit. I also broke the tip off of one of the pins. Thankfully, this is the only known pin damage.
Also, these locking pin backs are a project onto themselves. Screwing the tiny screw piece into the locking piece. And I had, at this point in the time 500 locking pin backs because a lot of these pins have 2 posts... I dropped them onto the carpet so many times to spend minutes searching, that I ended up lying a light colored towel down to catch the screws, the backs, or the allen wrenches I kept dropping. Eventually, I got into a routine. And moved onto the big tree. Still perfection, minus the 2005 pins... I don't know what Disney was thinking. These pins are large and hinged, so they are really heavy... one pin back. So they open up and spin around.
Days go on, my thumb throbs and throbs. While the thinner felt of the $200 tree is easier to put on the pin backs, now there is enough space for the post to stick out the other end of the back *just enough* to prick you when you are tightening it. And unfortunately the $200 tree starts to look a little droopy. My fears about the weight were not unfounded. However, I have found a whole bag of polyester fill in the storage room. And because of the unexpectedly larger incision created during the surgical procedure I have room to shove my hand in to shove the existing fill more into the top part and add more. I am still a little concerned about the center, but I really hope not to handle or move the tree too much at this point. So what do I have....
So there I was, scrolling Facebook for pin info and I see a post about some trees being sold at HomeGoods. Immediately, I recognized that here was a solution to one of my frustrating display issues, but more about that later, Act 1 of this story is about finding the trees. I came up with a reason why we had to go by our closest HomeGoods, not really expecting to find a tree because it seems like they had been in the stores for several weeks at that point. But off we go and I find a tree! $49.99, but it would be so perfect for what I had in mind. We purchase the tree, take it home and start playing around with it. "The leaves are so thick! How can these display pins as nicely as the FB image showed?" I search for the OG post, and in the meantime read several other posts asking how you keep the pins on? Finally, I found the post and I find out there is not just one tree, but a whole forest of trees in different sizes! My mind begins to spin... The guy mentions a specific locking pin back from Amazon, and that the trees are displayed on lazy susans. Brilliant! I still have my suspicions on whether backs would stay on, but he had pics. I count leaves on the tree... 115... uh, oh... while that is an impressive number of pins for one display, what I need is moar!
I have been collecting the annual Resort Happy Holidays Christmas pins released at WDW, DLR and Aulani since basically the series started in 2004. I started with just the WDW hotels, but then decided to go for Hilton Head and Vero Beach too. More recently, I decided I wouldn't be happy without the Disneyland ones, and since I have been to Aulani, I couldn't leave those out, now could I. There have been 455 pins released so far with 24/25 new pins released every year. I started out with 4 large frames to display them, but they weren't *that* large and I ran out of space about 2012, and didn't know what to do. I couldn't keep buying frames that I never actually got hung on the walls. This is why the felt trees struck me so hard. I just needed more.
Thankfully, I live in a decent size metro area and I have reasonably close access to 4 different HomeGoods. There are even more if I wanted to drive, but someone posted their photo on the CO Facebook pin group and they had already said "they had gone to several stores," and there was a limit to how much driving, especially in more crowded and less familiar parts. Someone also mentioned that Marshalls also had the same stock. And each of these remaining 3 had a Marshalls close to it. I had bought the last one at the closest store, so I was hopeful one of my six potential candidates would come through.
Since the message had gone out on our local Facebook pin group the night before, I wanted to get an early start to hit the next closest, in case anyone else was motivated to go felt tree hunting. On my first stop, victory! There were 3 trees, the same size and color as the one I had already purchased. But the 4th tree was dark green! Ooh, I didn't know there were different colors. So not only were there 3 sizes of tree, it turned out there were 3 different colors: light green, dark green and red. I was really after one of the tall trees, but this store did not have one. They did however, have a different felt tree I had not seen and still haven't seen in any of the social media posts about felt trees I've seen since. I saw a person post their pins on a smaller version of tree, but not this one.
This tree wasn't the Martha Stewart brand, but had a "handcrafted in Nepal." Tag. I knew the large Martha Stewart tree was $149.99, but this tree was $199.99! It's construction is also different. It's felt leaves are single thickness, and larger. Better for displaying large pins, and the backs would clearly stay on these. The downside was the tree was a bit floppy on the top half, and after adding the weight of so many pins... I could not risk $200 on a tree that would collapse. So I purchase my dark green tree, hopeful I can still find a large tree, and if I can't I could return and buy one of the 3 medium light green trees later, and I head to the Marshalls where I struck out, before returning home. Now that I had 2 trees, fully committed to this project I bought 300 locking pin backs and a 2-pack of 10" lazy susans. This was $80. 2 trees at $55ish each with tax... this was starting to get expensive.
And I really needed more trees! If you are counting 2 trees with 115 leaves is still only 230 out 455 + however many future years. I make my rounds and unfortunately, not much luck. At stop #4 there is a single medium, light green tree. But I decide to pass because I still wanted the big one, and could return to my first stop if I couldn't find one. Stops 5 & 6 failed to pan out, so I start the drive back to store #1. While I had 3 different areas to check, there was still a lot of driving between the stores, so I had spent several hours on this endeavor. Only to get back to the first store and... drum roll... NO TREES! Devastation. Did someone else from Facebook beat me to the punch? Well, there was one tree. The $200 tree. And so I picked it up, and it was too big to fit in the cart. But a staff person said they would hold it up front. I looked around the rest of the store because I hadn't done that yet, and it's HomeGoods (money suck). I head to the register, pay for my tree and the other things I had picked up. Then the cashier who helped me, walked away from the counter, pulled out a full cart of items needing to be restocked, and in the cart I see 2 of the medium green trees. !@#$%& I did not really want to return the $200 tree, and then buy the other ones. Especially, since I thought the $200 tree would be better for displaying the bigger pins. But after the ridiculousness of my hunt, I decided that the Universe wanted me to have the $200 tree.
I pack it up, and on the drive home start thinking about what I could do to reinforce the tree. And I get home to explain to DH why I have a $200 tree. The lazy susan for this tree would be $35 and I needed even more locking pin backs... I starting thinking about how my Mom would reinforce wedding cakes with wooden dowels, and I thought maybe if I could open the seam of the tree, I could jam something in the upper half of the tree for more support. I am not a seamstress. The first Amazon order of pin backs and lazy susans arrive. I head to Michaels. This was at least a cheap trip. $6 on two different sized wooden dowels and a package of snaps to sew on to reseal the tree.
Act 2 -
After several days of starring, and contemplating ruining a $200 tree, I get my exacto knife, locate the seam and create a 2" gap in which I can insert my dowels. I had to cut those down too. Success? The tree seems sturdier. I sew on the snaps. Only to fiddle with it and my 3" gap, grows to 6". Uh oh. I *have* ruined a $200 tree! I realized my mistake, I had cut the seam, but I didn't tie off the ends, so the stitches just kept separating. I properly tie off the existing seam, and add another set of 2 snaps. I *HAVE NOT* ruined a $200 tree! But now I must wait for the second order, with the larger lazy susan for the bigger tree. The other issue is one of display and storage space? What do you do with a 4 foot tree filled with over 200 pins? I decided the perfect spot is our family room, on top of the file cabinet by my computer. DH carries the tree down, and right now, perfect! Let's see what we think in May, lol.
It's finally time to begin adding pins. Well, not yet. How do I break down 455 pins on 3 trees, with the small ones on the small trees, and the large ones on the big trees? Do I mix the WDW and DLR / Aulani pins? The next phase involved a lot of counting. Of leaves and pins, to make sure I had an accurate count. Which meant first I had to take photos of the pins missing from Pin & Pop, update my file of pins I still need because I don't have them all. Figure out how many empty spaces I had to account for. Summing various scenarios of "if I put these years on this tree will the math work out." One piece of paper, double sided with a bunch of notes... the math checks out. I only had enough room for the WDW pins, leaving space for the pins I don't yet own, and 2 years worth of future pins. The DLR / Aulani pins have to find another solution (hopefully more trees next year?)
Act 3
It's finally time to begin adding pins! For real! I started with the original light green tree, with the thick leaves. I had re-read the OG post and the guy said while he was able to use the locking pin backs, it came with a price. Their thumbs. So I figured if those trees were going to be hardest, I better start with those so I could take breaks and work on the easier stuff, in between. Holy @#$ he wasn't joking about how much pressure you need to squeeze to get enough post for the lock to grab onto! But oh, boy, do the trees look good! However, I realize that my plan of getting it done in 2 days would be optimistic. The first night I added one year of 20 pins, and my thumb did not like it one bit. I also broke the tip off of one of the pins. Thankfully, this is the only known pin damage.
Also, these locking pin backs are a project onto themselves. Screwing the tiny screw piece into the locking piece. And I had, at this point in the time 500 locking pin backs because a lot of these pins have 2 posts... I dropped them onto the carpet so many times to spend minutes searching, that I ended up lying a light colored towel down to catch the screws, the backs, or the allen wrenches I kept dropping. Eventually, I got into a routine. And moved onto the big tree. Still perfection, minus the 2005 pins... I don't know what Disney was thinking. These pins are large and hinged, so they are really heavy... one pin back. So they open up and spin around.
Days go on, my thumb throbs and throbs. While the thinner felt of the $200 tree is easier to put on the pin backs, now there is enough space for the post to stick out the other end of the back *just enough* to prick you when you are tightening it. And unfortunately the $200 tree starts to look a little droopy. My fears about the weight were not unfounded. However, I have found a whole bag of polyester fill in the storage room. And because of the unexpectedly larger incision created during the surgical procedure I have room to shove my hand in to shove the existing fill more into the top part and add more. I am still a little concerned about the center, but I really hope not to handle or move the tree too much at this point. So what do I have....
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