Morgan Festival of Trees

Christmas Tree in the making

Creating a Tree for Morgan Festival of Trees Hosted by Morgan Area Chamber of Commerce located in Morgan, Utah.

We decided to Donate a tree for the Annual Festival of Trees located in Morgan, Utah. The donated Tree is up for bidding, and the money will be donated to the Local Sub for Santa efforts here in Morgan. So we decided to do a weather themed tree considering our recent WeatherEgg™ Kids Wacky Weather Board Game Kickstarter launched last month. Coming up a weather themed tree was difficult. You cannot just go to Walmart and buy weather themed ornaments except the typical snowflake. Ideas started forming, and before I knew it, I was hand making ornaments the week of Thanksgiving. Not only is it the week of Thanksgiving but also my kids had the Flu and Strep. Living in a small town, you tend to pass viruses around like crazy. My children were not the only kids sick at this time; half the schools were empty.

On to the ornament making and trying my hardest to not get sick in the process turned out to be a very stressful but joyful thanksgiving and believe it or not I did manage to go Black Friday Shopping. I decided a few weeks prior I wanted to make resin epoxy ornaments because I could not only customize the ornaments but I could add our very cute WeatherEgg™ Kids into the ornaments. I ordered silicone molds. Round, Snowflakes, Sphere, and Lighting bolts. I also ordered glitter. My ideas were running wild, but I needed something else as well. So I came up with the idea to do thermometers, but we will get to that later.

Making the resin epoxy ornaments

I googled on how to do so. After watching a few YouTube Videos and looking on Esty, I went ahead and ordered the Casting Epoxy off of Amazon in a significant amount. I wanted to make sure I had enough especially for mistakes. I started with the snowflakes.

You have to measure equal amounts of resin and hardener for the resin to set. Mix for 2 minutes and then mix in the glitter and pour into a mold.

After every blend, you have to clean out the measuring cup and do it all over again. It takes 24 hours for the resin to harden fully.

The Thermometers were a little different. I decided to order plastic beakers off of Amazon. I created and printed a thermometer insert, (Few tries to get the size right) and added red glitter for temperature. Hot glued the tops with a hook and sparkly thermometer.

I did try and keep it at the office and hide the evidence that I was making a craft with glitter, but with the sick kids and 24 hour cure time I had to move the operation to my house. Days and days of ornament making as well as my children making some crazy creations using every color of glitter and trying to help. We all know how children “help” especially a  10 and a 9-year-old. It looks like a fairy sneezed all over my home and office.

Next, I wanted something for rain. Trying to figure out rain was difficult. We needed more lights. Searched and searched on Amazon. Found just what I was looking for. They are called meteor lights, but to me, they seemed similar to rain.

We have the kids, thermometers, rain, lighting, what about the sun? I also found on Amazon the thin wire lights. I in my spare time I bent and shaped these lights into a sun shape. Cute but on the tree you can barely see them. Pictured here:

Added Ribbon, snowflakes tree skirt, sparkle grass. The result?

It turned out fantastic and creative. Everyone that has come to see the tree is like wow you made all those ornaments? Who are those characters? Opening up conversations about weather and our business and feeling of accomplishment and acceptance was the end goal, which we succeeded in immeasurably.

We will be doing this annually from now on. Not so sure on hand making ornaments next year, maybe if I have the time and the motivation. After all, it was a fun experience.

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