Man-made Tree

Recently A. Chris has been asking us for ideas to decorate her classroom for VBA (Vacation Bible Adventure). The theme this year was safari. I was so bogged down with the VBA crafts and Christmas musical that I just can't think of any fresh ideas. My reply to her on MSN was "No ideas". Then she asked Rachel. As usual Rachel had a lot of ideas but no time. A.Chris said that she had a few soft toy monkeys but didn't know what to do with them. Rachel suggested making a tree with papier-mache and hanging the monkeys on the tree.

We started making the tree trunk yesterday with chicken netting,newspapers and starch.. The sun was shinning brightly and the newspaper dried very quickly. We were pleased with the results but when we tried to make the tree stand, the tree refused to obey. The foundation wasn't firm enough and the tree always had to leaned on something. We added more newspapers and starch at the base and onto the tree trunk and left it to continue the next day.

Today the sky was overcast. With hardly any sun rays my hopes on making a tree were low. Nevertheless, we continued by adding more newspapers to the tree trunk and making the main branches.

While waiting for the tree to dry, we painted the leaves. Everyone grumbled because there were so many leaves to paint.

Then we started dressing the tree with the painted leaves. After sticking more than 40 leaves, we took a hard look at our handiwork. It didn't resembled a tree at all. It looked so ugly and I was sure some of the nearby trees were laughing at this poor ugly tree which couldn't stand on it's own but had to be supported by 2 plastic chairs.

At about 3.30pm, I gave up. A. Chris gave up. The project was a flop.

Suddenly, 10 minutes later, my father came with a wooden base he made himself. He tore off all the branches and turned the tree upside down to insert the wooden base in. And when he turned the tree right side up again... ta da..... the tree stood on it's own.

Everyone cheered and we started adding the branches and leaves again. It was so much easier this time. We did finish the tree within the hour.

Rachel came later to paint the tree trunk. My mom and Su-Ann helped too.

Here's the finished work. This lion was taken from the Kidz Safari event we had in May. A.Chris thought the tree looked a little too bare and she said she would do more branches with leaves at home.

It was a tiring day for me. I felt weak and weary but happy because we'd managed to save the tree. Hurray for my father. :)