Pixie Haven's Yule Festival of Light tree
I hope you enjoy reading this, as at this time this is a continuous adventure of how my Yule Festival of Light tree is to come about. I will keep it growing until it is finished and enhancing my living room by standing in my bay window for the Pixie Haven Yule Festival of Light. Every time I work on this piece, every time I add detail or enhance it, I will put up another post. So the newest post is the latest chapter in my stick tree journey.
Please read down to see how it all began.
β¨οΈπβ¨οΈβ¨οΈπβ¨οΈβ¨οΈπβ¨οΈβ¨οΈπβ¨οΈβ¨οΈπβ¨οΈβ¨οΈπβ¨οΈβ¨οΈπβ¨οΈβ¨οΈπβ¨οΈβ¨οΈπβ¨οΈ
π Last year I did the full bit. I had a tree from a well-known supermarket, a full snowy fibre optic tree, seven foot tall. I put it for display, fully dressed with ornaments and tinsel, in my bay window π
π By night it was beautiful. It lit up the whole bay window and living room. But in the day all it gave was darkness and shadow. It took away the one thing I wanted, light, by preventing it coming in π
This year I have been in anticipation, thinking about what to have, what to do. Because life is about love and light. Sometimes we follow the same road, the path that is already set out. We don't want to change it and do something different, and we tell ourselves maybe next year we'll try something else, something new.
I saw some beautiful stick trees at my local garden centre. They were painted white, and they were lit up, and I thought how amazing they were. They were truly incredible because as they are thin stick trees the light passes straight by them, so as not to cast a shadow and won't block out any light. In the sense the simplicity of their design actually gives more light.
So still with this stick tree thoughts in my mind. Whilst walking my dog Teddy, we often search for driftwood and have found some beautiful pieces (please check out A Gift From The Universe, which is another page within this website realm, also my home, Pixie Haven). It was whilst walking down a narrow lane that I looked up. I could see that the hedge trimmer had been down the lane within the last week or two and cropped all the tops and taken back the foliage. It was then that I noticed that many of the tall tops were now hanging down.
And so I started to think about the stick trees again. What if I repurpose? I'm not taking anything that is living from nature. I'm not killing and I'm not hurting any creature by destroying their habitat.
I always get a bit emotional when I see the trees at the supermarkets and farms, the ones that have been cut. If I was going to bring a traditional tree into my home, I would buy one with roots. So I may plant it in my garden for the coming year, hence by loving it, and giving it light outside after the season, I give it life for the future.
The first sighting of my Yule Festival of Light tree was of it hanging upside down, squashed against the foliage within the hedgerow, pushed into the lane. The leaves on it were a bit crispy and brown although it was hanging loosely it still had green tree moisture within its stem but a couple of twists loosened it and brought it down. I have not killed anything as it was already cut, and not by my hand.
The first thing I did when I bought it home was cut a good length of the bottom trunk off. About five foot. Which is going to be a beautiful staff, another project for the future. It is now standing about eight to nine foot tall. It needs a good trim and tidy up to give it that rounded tidy stick tree that I idyllically hold in my mind.
Some branches unfortunately snapped. I am fixing them by applying small pins within the branch and the stem of which I am fixing it to. I am also using adhesive sealed within sticky plasters. I am stabilizing the drying construction with cable ties. I have taken off the three bottom branches giving it a long enough stem for it to be able to stand within a cat scratching post giving it stability and strength.
