Lantern Time Already?

Every October for the past five years my community has entered the Mount Holly Lantern Parade. The theme for this year was announced at the end of last year's parade, and it is "The Wide World of Sports". I'm not going to lie, none of us are excited about this theme. Our goal is always to have something that engages the children along the parade route, as well as having enough lanterns for the many residents in our community who want to walk in the parade with us.

We really struggled with coming up with something that would be fun for us to work on. We actually considered not participating this year. But finally we came up with an idea that we thought would work for us. I doubt that any of our competitors read this blog, but nevertheless I will keep what we are doing a surprise. It encompasses many sports, so I think that will appeal to a lot of people.

We have begun deconstruction of our larger lanterns from last year. We repurpose the interior framing and light packs when we can. I took one last picture of all the sharks together for posterity's sake.

Baby Shark & family

Speaking of surprises, my husband will be turning 70 this year. I had planned a surprise trip for him, setting up an activity that he really enjoys. I have kept the secret, and all he knew was that he would need his passport, and to dress for warm weather. But yesterday, the group that I organized the trip through sent out an email to HIM and not to me. They were aware that this was a gift for Jim and were told not to contact him. So much for the surprise!!!

I am really aggravated about it, and am trying to get over it. They have yet to reach out to me to apologize for their error. But I don't want our trip to start out on the wrong foot, so I'll need to be gracious about it. Jim is excited about where we are going, so in the end that is all that matters.

Tianyu Lights Festival

Tianyu Lights Festival

Tuesday night several of us who are working on the lanterns for the Mount Holly Lantern Parade attended the Tianyu Lights Festival in Charlotte. Tianyu strives to bring authentic Chinese lanterns traditions to the US and Europe. We thought it would be fun to see how their lanterns are constructed, and also get inspiration for building our own lanterns. We arrived early enough that we could see the lanterns in the daylight, but stayed until it got dark out.

The theme for this year's Mount Holly parade is "Into the Deep Blue Sea", and we already know that we our entry will be based on the incredibly successful Baby Shark YouTube video. We will obviously build the main characters, but are looking for ideas for other items to add. The Tianyu show had quite a few lanterns that were water-related, and that gave us some good ideas.

While the Tianyu lanterns are constructed of wire, lights and fabric, our lanterns are wire, lights and colored paper. But still the ideas are somewhat transferable. The festival was very well done, and included some live performances as well. They had quite a few lanterns that were interactive for the attendees, as well as many that were mechanized. We were all happy that we attended the show, and it was fun to get together in a manner that didn't involve sitting and working on our own lanterns! 

Chinese lanterns

Welcome June

It is so hard to believe that it is the first of June! Sometimes it seems like the months drag, and others they just fly by. That seems to be the case with May. The weather has been quite nice, though we have had periods of heavy rain. That is okay, though, as we are trying to recover from drought conditions. Hopefully all this moisture will alleviate the forest fires we have been experiencing.

The birds have been very active out back. For the first time since we have lived here, we actually had two ducks under our bird feeder. That's unusual since we are about 100 feet above the lake. I guess they like good birdseed, too. 

backyard birds

This week will be quite busy with pickleball, making lanterns for the Mount Holly Lantern Parade, a followup visit with my podiatrist, and company coming for the weekend. I am hoping this will be the last appointment with the foot doctor, though I am not 100% pain-free yet. I'm optimistic that he will say things are still healing and that is why I still have some pain. Fingers crossed!

I Love a Parade

The annual Mount Holly Lantern Parade is in October, but the lantern making crew here at Imagery has already been working since the beginning of April on ideas for our entry. This year's theme is "The Fantastical World of Flight." Our small brainstorming committee came up with lots of ideas. Since we are in North Carolina, the Wright Brothers immediately came to mind. But we felt that was too obvious. We tossed around Dumbo, Casper, the Jetsons, Aladdin, Tinkerbell...

We have a large number of volunteers who, while they may never come to help build the lanterns, love to walk in the parade. So we wanted something that could involve a number of walkers. We also take great care to engage the children on the parade route, because they are so enthusiastic. Having minions and 101 Dalmatians in the past were big hits! We have taken first place in community entries all three years we have entered, so we feel some pressure to do something bigger and better.

lantern construction

We finally settled on Santa, his sleigh and reindeers. The sleigh will be five feet in length, and each reindeer four feet in length. We are also building lantern gift boxes, lollipops, and probably candy canes to really make a statement. Down the road we will ask the parade organizer if we can be the last entry in the parade. Just like in the Macy's Parade, we feel Santa should bring up the rear. Who cares about Christmas in July - we have Christmas in June going here!

Mount Holly Lantern Parade

Imagery and 101 Dalmatians
(photo by Bob Leverone Photography)

I'll get back to my national parks trip postings later, but Saturday night was the Sixth Annual Mount Holly Lantern Parade. For the third year our Imagery community has entered the group category in the parade. This year's theme was Heroes and Villains, and we decided when we heard the theme last October that we would do 101 Dalmatians as our entry. It has wonderful villains in Cruella and the Badun brothers, and super heroes with Pongo and Perdita coming to the rescue of the puppies.

We began the lanterns in earnest in June, and many, many hands participated in making our dream a reality. Cruella reached a whopping 8'6" height, and Pongo and Perdita were built to the size of actual Dalmatians. The remaining puppies were much smaller in scale so we didn't need 101 walkers in the parade.

We put puppies on stars, on poles and on hula hoops to make it all come together. All told we had 42 walkers on Saturday night, and enough people dressed as puppies with painted faces and lit up ears that we ended up with 101 Dalmatians.

The entry was a hit with the crowds as well as the parade organizers. For the third straight year we took first place in our category. That puts a lot of pressure on us for next year, the theme of which has not yet been announced. But I'm sure we are up for the challenge!

Mount Holly Lantern Parade

It's Lantern Parade Time

Dalmatians 

It's time for the annual Mount Holly Lantern Parade. Well, okay, the parade is not until October but it is time for us to start building our lanterns. For the third year in a row, Imagery will have an entry in the parade under the "community" category. The pressure is on as we have taken first place the past two years.

This year's theme is "Heroes and Villains", so that offered an abundance of opportunities for sure. We decided to go with "101 Dalmatians" since the story contains both heroes and villains. There are a lot of families with children who attend the parade, and we felt like they would get a kick out of seeing the Dalmatian puppies. I don't think we will have 101 of them, however! Let alone trying to build that many lanterns, we would struggle to find enough volunteers to carry them the night of the parade.

A small group of us have begun making some puppies because we will have a lantern-making workshop here in the community next Sunday night. It's an opportunity for new neighbors to see what we are up to, and hopefully recruit some volunteers. We will also get a jump on getting some puppies constructed.

We will have four stations at the workshop, and will have completed lanterns at each to show the process. The first station will construct the lanterns with wire, the second will add lights to the lanterns, the third will glue the specialty paper over the lanterns, and the fourth will add the black spots to the Dalmatians.

My specialty is stringing the lanterns with lights, so I will man that station. I did the structural wiring of two puppies in preparation for next week, and I really did not enjoy the experience. I'll leave that to the wiring experts and stick with lighting. One thing that is nice about lighting is that I can bring the lanterns home and do it in front of the television.

lit Dalmatians 

There are a lot of logistics to work out, but we have a very experienced core group working on this so I'm confident we will have a great-looking entry again this year. And the crowd will ask, "Who let the dogs out?" Who, who, who, who, who!

Granddaughter is here!

Our granddaughter was born Monday evening! She is little, but mighty. As I'm not sure how much the kids want me to share, I'll just say that we are thrilled that everyone is healthy. We can't wait to get our hands on that baby!

My Mohs surgery to remove my latest two basal cells has been scheduled for December 1st. I pray that Dr. Mu will be able to get clear margins after the first cuts. When she did my nose three years ago, it took five tries before she finally got it all. Hopefully that will not be the case this time.

The Mount Holly Lantern Parade took place last month, and our community won First Place in the Group Category for the second year in a row. We are two for two now, and that puts a lot of pressure on us for next year's entry. The theme was Written in the Stars, so we decided to up-cycle our minions from last year. We added space helmets, rockets and stars, and created a girl minion. We weren't sure if the judges would approve of us reusing lanterns, but I think we made enough changes that they could tell the amount of work we put into them.

2022 Mount Holly Lantern Parade

The theme for next year's parade is Heroes and Villains. We are already brainstorming on what we might like to do. Due to the large number of children in the audience, it's important to pick something readily recognizable to them, I think. The minions were a huge crowd pleaser, so we need something to generate that kind of enthusiasm from the crowd. We just had a wrap up celebration party with our team of volunteers. I made sure the minions had one last hurrah by bringing minion cupcakes.

minion cupcakes

Chinese Lantern Festival 2015

Phoenix Reborn

The Missouri Botanical Garden has a special event going on right now, "Lantern Festival: Magic Reimagined". This is the second time that they have hosted a Chinese Lantern festival, the first being held in 2012. It is rare for lantern festivals to take place outside of China, so it is a testament to the close relationship the Garden has established with that country that we are blessed to have it in St. Louis again.

The 22 lanterns are impressive during the day, but when they are illuminated at night they do indeed become magical. I wasn't sure that they could top the last festival, but this show is equally as impressive. On July 20th they offered a special night for photographers. Though it came with a fairly steep price tag, the attendance was limited and more importantly they allowed monopods and tripods to be carried in. Those are restricted on all other nights. I was unsure how "limited" it would actually be, but Jim and I were quite surprised. There was no problem with parking, and while I know the event was sold out the crowd was minimal. Add the fact that the rain held off and it was a comfortable temperature and humidity level, and all that equals a successful evening. They did not have any of the performances taking place that night, so that was too bad.

Porcelain Elephants

For the special events held at the Garden I like to go during the day to photograph all the sculptures.That way I get the lay of the land while it is light out, but also it is so interesting to see what they are made of. While most of the lanterns are constructed of traditional silk fabric on wire frames, two (including the elephants picture on the right) are comprised of porcelain plates, cups, bowls and spoons, tied together with intricate knots. The peacock is made of glass medicine bottles filled with colored water, while the dandelions are made of recycled bottles.

While I did get some good photos that night, I am a little disappointed that the lanterns don't seem as sharp as I would like them to be. That is despite using my tripod and trying all different kinds of settings on the camera. I have seen pictures taking by other people that are way more sharp. They probably took them with their iPhones! Sometimes too many settings is not a good thing, especially for me. I should have taken some with my own phone just to compare. It is a little frustrating, and I suppose that tells me I need more practice. Regardless, the show is amazing and I highly recommend a visit. It runs until August 23rd.

Porcelain Stupas Pagoda and Lantern Way

Soaring Dragon Horse and Dandelions

Sun Yatsen Gate and Dragon King