Volunteer Project

Every year the local rose club I belong to hosts a rose show. Usually it is attended by the rose clubs in the area (bet you didn't know there was more than one!). This year we hosted the district show and convention. People came from all over Minnesota and Wisconsin to attend seminars, party with other rosey people and exhibit their roses.

Since my rose garden has become a shade garden, I don't exhibit in the show any more. Thankfully they've started a photography section. Now I can show roses from other people's gardens! This year I volunteered to help with this part of the show. It involved helping with the judging - special thanks to my good friend Ken who took time out of his weekend to share his photography expertise. It also involved figuring out how to display all 48 entries. Involved, indeed!

The project took on a life of it's own. Given that I'd never done anything like this before, I was a bit out of my element. However, I feel like I'm fairly resourceful and know my way around a Home Depot (thanks to those years in art school and the subsequent years owning a 1950s home).

So after 5 trips to Home Depot, 3 trips to Michaels, a little help from Dad and his table saw I figured it out. I started with...

2 - 4' x 8' plastic lattice sheets

8 - 8' 1" x 2" boards

3 - cans of white spray paint (never buy the cheap stuff, I'm just sayin)

6 - sets of hinges

1 - box of screws

1 - box of nails

And came up with this!
The next test was to see how to stick the matted photographs on the boards. It needed to be removable and yet sticky at the same time. This involved all the trips to Michaels. I tried...

3 - different kinds of tacky glue strips

1 - individual glue dots

2 - rolls of double stick tape

In the end, I went with one of the tacky glue strips (Elmer's I believe) which worked quite well in my basement. Unfortunately, the set up was in the lobby of the pool. Extra humid. Ugh. Photos were popping off everywhere. Luckily for me there was a bar nearby Elena was nice enough to go to WalMart and pick up some super strong double stick tape. Which sort of worked. Mostly. The finished product...
All in all, it took me about 10 hours and cost $100. Thankfully, someone else in the club was nice enough to store them until next year's show. At which time, we'll figure out some other way to attach the photos. I received many compliments on the displays, which made it all worth it, no matter how much I complained as I hand sawed through each square of lattice...