How We Built Our First Tree

The most common question we get asked, is how did you make that tree?

Unfortunately the build process will die a secret with the Autumn Grove team, but I can let you in on the materials that we used. (Don’t worry, we’ve got an engineer on the team so the tree is definitely structurally sound)

The bones of our tree are made with thick steel (this gives our tree its structural integrity). From a steel skeleton we then used thin pieces of wood to connect the beams and start giving the tree some shape. Once the trunk was starting to look like a trunk, we then covered it in chicken wire and sprayed it with fire proof hardening foam. This allowed us to keep the tree light and also give us more flexibility to further shape the tree. Once the tree was sprayed and reshaped, we covered it in calico and spray painted it to make it look as realistic as possible.

After making the trunk we then went on to make 7 main branches and 35 sub branches using the same process. The next challenge was to make 240 leaf stem connectors to connect the stems of our leaves to our structural branches, and this was done using wood.

In the first version of our tree we used toilet paper rolls to make 11,000 hand stenciled, cut out and spray painted leaves, as it gave our leaves a natural curve. (And can I tell you it took 6 of us, every Friday night for 6 months to make them! Shout out to all those involved and for all the visitors who got roped in if they came over for dinner)

When we decided to turn this into a business, we upgraded our leaves to commercial grade, fire proof and first class artificial leaves and have increased our leaf coverage to include 14,520 leaves.

In total our built took 6 months. 6 months of week days, week nights and week ends. 6 months of blood, sweat and tears, from a dedicated and loving family, and can I tell you … it was all worth it :)

Our build process and schedule has refined with each tree we create as we dream bigger to help bring your ideas to life.