Bouquet of Flowers - St Laurence's Christmas Tree Festival

Thank you to everyone who stitched and sent a flower for my tree at church this year. Early in the year I decided my theme would be a Bouquet of Flowers to represent all the beautiful flowers I received after my breast cancer diagnosis. 

I put it on my blog and asked if anyone would like to stitch a flower and send it .... I have been overwhelmed by everyone's kindness, thank you. 

I asked for the flowers to be sent as stitched, this saved expensive postage for everyone and meant I could finish them all in the same way so although different they still matched. 

It was quite a big job to mount, lace and add silver zig zag to each one but worth the time as they came out lovely. I used felt foam for the backing and matched this to the colour of each flower. 

Here's all the flowers together and close ups in small groups. I did email everyone to show how their flower turned out. 

Sadly because of the restrictions here in England due to the coronavirus the church cannot hold the tree festival. It is such a shame as usually the church is filled with 60 real trees with each being decorated in a variety of themes. Everyone takes part from individuals like myself to local charities, nurseries, schools and businesses. It's a lovely atmosphere when we are all in church decorating our trees with tinsel and baubles everywhere. 

However the Tree Festival is still happening .... this year we are having a virtual festival. In the summer the church hosted a very successful virtual Flower Festival and have worked very hard to put together this year's Tree Festival. Many of the images are from previous years and include trees decorated by friends and families no longer with us, it is lovely to see them. 

You can read about the Virtual Festival here  - and watch it below .... the Bouquet of Flowers features for 2021! 

As the Bouquet of Flowers tree is a new tree, Hubby and I got our tree out of the attic and decorated it as if it was at church. I put together a few photos to show how much love has gone into this tree from all over the world. 

Thank you again to everyone who stitched and sent a flower, I did received some too late for this tree but I will be putting the Bouquet of Flowers tree up in church at next year's festival and will make those flowers up to be added in. If you'd like to stitch a flower to be added next year please let me know. 

Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas - I hope you enjoy our virtual Christmas Tree Festival from St Laurence's Church, Ansley, England.