Thread: Creating an indoor forest? HELP!

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My idea this year is to create a spooky forest inside my venue. I am having the hardest time finding trees. I could just throw up some plastic scene setters but I HATE the way they look. I've always LOVED the cardboard trees they have at the the Spirit Halloween stores but I know they aren't available to the public. Stumps carries some okay ones but I don't like the way they look. They USED to carry some better looking ones but they don't anymore. I can't really rent any faux trees that aren't palm or ficus. Where do I go from here? Know of any descent prop trees or any great ideas for creating the look of a forest indoors? I thought of getting a bunch of artificial Christmas trees, but I think they would be too obviously CHRISTMAS trees. Just conceptualizing here thanks!

Everytime I have some money between projects, I buy camo netting....That gets expensive real quick but it's worth it to me.....Spirit sold those trees to the public but they were pretty expensive for cardboard....I think what made them look kind of cool is that they hung jute all around for growth.....If you were to take the jute away, the trees would have not looked good at all....I don't have room for trees inside my building so the camo netting works the best.....Hope that helps....ZR

I found this on another site - making a tree with chicken wire and paper mache - looks pretty good, hope this helps!
Life-Size Haunted Tree

Well I'm not the only one... bad thing is that I have a huge barn that I was going to do a forest in. The best way to do it is chicken wire and paper mache, however, the shear amount of work involved is making me think about changing my theme.

Brother Grim, don't be discouraged YET. It's only May. I'll let you know if I come up with any awesome ideas. Oh, here's one I have, I'm renting a fountain from my local party rental store($25), in keeping with the fairy tale theme, then to the water I'm adding Atomic Glow($6), which makes the water fosforece (sp?) a bright green under black light.

I loved the idea of camo netting zombie raider but I have to drape an entire dance hall so i quickly set out to find a similar material that might be cheaper and viola... erosion netting! (About $65 for 900 sq ft. maybe cheaper on ebay) I plan to take lengths of wire between 2 and 6 feet long and attach them randomly to the ceiling, then drape some erosion netting that I've tattered and shredded up over those length, creating a sort of cypress tree effect. Having a whole canopy of erosion netting should help. What do you think?

I'm still trying to find a few trees that I can use here and there but I think that should REALLY help create a full look.

Erosion netting? You mean Jute? Where can I see this Erosion Netting you speak of?

Yes, That's the stuff Spirit had hanging the way you described....Done right gives it a great forest effect.....Most of the jute is brown....Spirit's was green....I have a much smaller area to fill so the camo netting will work out for me even though it's expensive....I'm going to restretch it this year the way I did the year before...It took away all the "squareness" of the building and really made it feel like you were walking in a bunch of overgrowth.....Good Luck!....ZR

paper mache is the way to go

This online fabric store has it for 1.90 a yard! Burlap Erosion Cloth - Jute Erosion Control Cloth Though I think I'll go with a greyish color. Spirit has it in 5 ft. sections for $15 which is spendy but it's green. Here are some photos online I found.
http://hauntworld.com/safety/images/Picture-4.jpg
http://www.studio33store.com/v/vspfi...th%20FR-2T.jpg
http://www.ghostsofhalloween.com/hau...01/full/18.jpg

Another name for it is "DORP." This person uses it heavily in his pro haunt and eve uses it in strips as curtain which looks REALLY cool and WAY cheaper than Camo Netting. http://www.terrorsyndicate.com/tsp_haunts2000.html

Good Luck Brother Grim!

I feel your pain. Our haunt this year will include about 45 fake trees! So far, we have 1 done. When I have more time, I will share how we plan on pulling this off. Gotta run.