Steampunk by Gaslight: Mario Tree Complete

Jenn and I found a tree to start decorating.

Or rather, we found a tree that we can make acceptable to decorate. I'll elaborate. She wanted to shop for a 4 foot tree we can set up in the foyer. Jenn was convinced that the best trees are at a specific tree lot near her parents house, on the other side of town. Knowing that I was going to be enlisted to help (if it involves moving large or heavy things, the default is getting Dameon to move it), I did a little research.

The tree lot is owned by a company that sets up these lots all over town. All over, apparently, except downtown. On their website was a map showing a ring of lots around the city, leaving a big empty space in the middle. In the center of this space is where we live. Oddly, Joanne's fabrics stores are roughly on this ring as well, and many gaming stores. Wierd.

Anyway, we found a different lot closer to some errands we were running, so decided to try that one. While running errands, Jenn became frustrated because we were running low on time in the day and gave up and decided we're going to Home Depot for the tree after all.

We get to HD, and all but the largest trees are already taken. Jenn is stomping around, muttering about how we should have gone to the other lot by her parent's place, while I was trying to find a more creative solution.

I noticed that there was cutting station at one end of the lot, where employees will make a fresh cut on the bottom of the tree before wrapping it up in plastic for transportation. I walked up to the guy with the chainsaw (his nametag read Steven), and told him our story. I asked him if it was possible to take one of the larger trees and cut it down to 4 feet. I told him that I know that the taller one's are nearly twice as expensive, but Jenn's heart is set on a small tree and I REALLY didn't want to come out on a second trip in a few days. Steven said he would do it, and just let him know when we had decided on a tree.

I explained my arrangement to Jenn, who immediately chilled the hell out and we went about choosing a tree that could be cut down to size. We found it, and Steven cut it (though not without a considerable amount of extra work on his end), and we went home. Thanks Steven!

So here's the tree, set up in our foyer, bookended by my mannequins.

Next was to finish the myriad ornaments and make a garland.

For the garland, Jenn had the idea of having brick and question blocks running around the tree. I thought it was awesome. We found some small flat-packed card-stock gift boxes and Jenn made the templates for the bricks and question blocks in Illustrator. We printed them out at Kinko's and got to work. The garland however was not fun to make. 100 separate boxes, each needing to be assembled, their individual template cut out, glued to the box, and strung up. It took 2 days, nearly non-stop to complete. It looks awesome, but I wouldn't want to do it again.

The ornaments were fun, but there were a lot of them. Mushrooms, pixel art, shells, etc. Jenn joked on several occasions about giving up and just filling in what space was left with traditional ornaments. I was committed to this project though. So we bought more FunFusion beads, and looked up more power up mushrooms, and painted, and sanded, and cut, and ironed, and glued. For 2 weeks after work and over the last couple weekends.

Finally, this morning, I finished the last of the hanging ornaments. All that's left is the tree-topper. Jenn made a pixel-art Princess Peach, but just in case I can't get our first idea working.

Here's the tree currently. It's fully decorated, with Peach as a stand in until I can make a lighted Mario star.