Professional Displays

White Christmas

Holiday 2009 at Anthro was all about a white Christmas. To create a winter wonderland in the windows my intern and I spent *weeks* making these tissue paper poofs.

Poofs!

Some of the poofs had a slight glow; I strategically placed lightbulbs in certain areas so they would stand out at night.

A closeup of a glowing poof.

On the inside of the store I had the poofs travel across the sales floor and crawl up the wall. I love the organic feel of this installation. My amazing intern Jenn was invaluable in helping me install this.

While my first set of windows was about a warm white the other set was about evoking an icy, cold feeling.

This window was created from a mishmash of materials including tissue paper poofs, plastic cups, garbage bags, and paper chains. I used energy efficient lightbulbs to give the blue glow.

This side of the window is made from hundreds of plastic bottles dipped in wax and then covered in spray snow. The next picture is a detail shot.

Detail of the bottles.

Birch Forest

The company came up with this beautiful idea for the front of the store -- a snowy birch forest with lamps popping out from the branches. I wish I had a front porch I could do this on, I think it's so pretty.

I covered lampshade frames with stretch wrap and sprinkled them with snow to give a wintry feel. I put in fake light pulls that had tags attached with cute phrases -- this one says "warm glow." Fun fact: the brass part of the "lamp" is actually made from pipe found in the plumbing aisle at Home Depot.

Measuring Snow

How many inches of snow? The white winter theme continued with rulers measuring snow on some of the upper shelves.

To display some of our ornaments I made this tree out of a big sheet of birch veneered plywood. A wooden stump completed the look.

I made these big cardboard letters the season before, but kept them on the shelf for Holiday and layered in small trees and snowballs (made from stretch wrap) to give them a wintry feel.

The ostrich and animal heads I made for fall also stayed for holiday. For winter, the ostrich got a scarf while the animal heads got...

...earmuffs! Made from cardboard, just like the heads.

I braided up little scarves so our "beastie hooks" could stay warm, too.

A little birdie left some tracks in the snow on this tabletop.

I used silicone molds meant for ice cubes to create plaster letters that were nestled in the snow on the tabletop.

Fireside

Thankfully the huge fireplace I built for fall stayed for another season. We just added a Christmas tree and garland to make it feel like a cozy holiday living room.

Icy Landscape

Beside the poofs, this was the second biggest installation for Holiday -- an icy landscape on the wall. This is actually made from thousands of plastic cups dipped in wax and covered with fake snow.

A closeup of the cups. Some were dipped in blue wax. You can also see some of the fake snow and clusters of straws I used to add dimension.

Strategically placed lightbulbs added a subtle glow.

A smaller version of the cup landscape on another wall. You can see on the right that I also incorporated plastic bottles dipped in wax.

A snow drift traveling down some shelves, with a little sled at the top of the hill.

Chandelier

The White Christmas theme continued over the cashwrap with this "chandelier" I made out of register tape, which is the paper receipts are printed on. This light fixture was huge; the outside rectangle was somewhere between 8 and 10 feet long.

It doesn't show up in the photograph, but many of the strips were covered in glitter and/or dipped in wax. I love the variation in the level of light coming through the different layers.

Winter Wonderland

I wiped clean the chalkboard walls in the back of the store (leftover from the season before) and drew a simple wintry landscape with snowflakes falling.

Closeup. I created a stencil and crushed chalk to create a powder which I then patted on top of the stencil. A simple and sweet ending to the Holiday display.