Festive Trees

This week I went to an annual Lawrence event called the Festival of Trees. It's a benefit that supports The Shelter, Inc., which is a local organization that provides emergency social services for children in our community. I probably wouldn't have attended the event except that my friend Amanda, who used to be a graphic designer at Endowment, was the featured local artist for the event this year. She was commissioned to make 25 handmade ornaments to sell at the event, the proceeds of which would benefit The Shelter. There was a whole article about her in the Lawrence Journal-World that talks about her ornaments in particular and her art in general. There's even a link to a slideshow with audio commentary by Amanda. It's pretty cool! She's super talented, and you can see lots more of her work on her website, www.amandawarren.com. I just love her work and could spend hours looking through her portfolio. I was lucky enough to purchase the very last one of her handmade ornaments on the last day of the festival, and we discovered that it compliments our red kitchen beautifully! I'll be displaying it year round instead of just at Christmas!

Anyway, the Festival of Trees raises funds by receiving donations of uniquely decorated trees from people and organizations in the community, and then auctioning them off to other people and organizations in the community. It might sound a little silly, but when I actually went this year, I was pleasantly surprised at how many really fun and unique entries there were. I was hoping that the Journal-World would have lots of pictures of the fun entrants, because some of them were just too crazy or complicated to describe. Some of them weren't even really trees at all, like the entry from Golf Course Superintendents Association of America, which was actually like four little putting greens stacked on top of one another in the shape of a tree. Many of the trees has particular themes, like the Dr. Seuss tree, which apparently sold for more than $2000. There were trees with decorations made by children, and trees that were themselves made of recycled metal. It was really interesting! Although the Journal-World didn't publish many pictures with their article the following day, they did publish a link to the local news coverage, so you can get a glimpse of a few of the trees!