Brandy Gibson from Chestnut Ridge Church in Morgantown, WV brings us this bottled Christmas design.
They built a 12-foot tall glass tree for their “Finding Christmas” series. They hung 483 glass bottles with 20 lb. test fishing line from an overhead batton on their stage.
They constructed a 6′ wide, 12′ tall cone-shaped skeleton from 1″ aluminum tubing, welded aluminum angle and polycarbonate sheeting of varying thicknesses (thickest at the widest part of the cone). Using a clear material made it possible to light the bottles on all sides using LED strips.
They attached the polycarbonate to the aluminum frame using self-drilling screws, which worked well to attach it not only to the tubing, but also to pin the layers of polycarbonate together where the layers overlapped. With a cone this size, it would have easily taken 1,000+ bottles to cover the cone 360°. Where the tree was positioned on stage, it wasn’t necessary to cover the back. So they flanked the tree with translucent tree-shaped coroplast to keep the bottles front and center.
Side note: glass bottles vibrate and rearrange themselves when the band plays.
They added a little dry ice, some oversized ornaments and fantastic lighting to make it come alive.
I want that!
Awesome job guys!