The Steampunk Christmas Tree: Methuen Festival of Trees 2014

 

I recently blogged about our TARDIS Christmas Tree, our entry into the 2015 Methuen Festival of Trees. Last year, our entry was a Steampunk-themed tree, and I wanted to share some pictures and a video of that.

 

You might not be able to tell from the picture above, but the tree didn't start out as a tree at all. I made it out of a 4" x 4" x 4' fence post, with a base made of crossed 2" x 4" x 24" studs. Compared to other trees we've done, it was small but very sturdy (and heavy!).

 

The "branches" were a combination bits of hardware, from plant hangers to shelf brackets, like these:

  

We got them in different lengths, so the tree would have the expected tapered shape. We even found some wall decorations shaped like old-fashioned keys, which were long enough that we used them as bottom branches. I don't have a picture of just them, but maybe you can make them out in one of the other pictures.

For a tree topper, my daughter found a matched set of cast iron compass roses at an antique barn we like in Newburyport, MA. To add a little pizzazz, and color, to the tree topper, I added 8 neoPixels to each compass rose (with the wiring and controller sandwiched between them). I controlled them with a 5V/16MHz Arduino Pro Mini running a slightly modified version of the strandtest sketch.

 

 

 

The tree had a couple of strands of "regular" multicolor Christmas lights, too - and my wife is SO much better at stringing lights than I am! My last lighting contribution to the tree was a number of vacuum tubes, mounted at the ends of several branches, to which I cemented color-changing LEDs. It made the vacuum tubes look really cool, and blended in with the other lights quite naturally.

 

 

While I was handling the lightning and the structural components of the project, my wife and her best friend Karen were going to town on ornaments and other decorations. These few photos don't really do them justice; I'll post some of the photos my wife took when I get a chance. There were gears and keys and chains and vintage bits of hardware. In the 2nd photo below, you can see one of my favorites, a snowman ornament my wife made out of gears and clock hands!

 

We named our tree "Steampunk Celebrations." While we were setting up the tree, a lot of people asked us what Steampunk was and what it was all about. We ended up printing out a brief explanation, framing it, and displaying it with the tree.

 

I loved Steampunk long before I ever knew it had a name. As it turns out, a lot of other folks were just the same, and we got a fair share of "ah-ha" moments when we explained it to them. For the first time ever, we also won First Place, in the Most Unique / Creative category! It certainly helps that none of the judges (or other Festival folks) had ever seen anything quite like it before.

We have no idea who won our tree in the raffle, but I hope they enjoy it as much as we enjoyed making it.

 

Merry Christmas & Happy New Year!