Float Decorating for the Rose Parade

The volunteer entrance is well marked as they need all the help they can get.
The SKPs who helped decorate. Our guide Leslie is the short young one in the middle. She also has an equestrian group in the parade.

On the left is an early mock up of the Jack in the Box design. The drawings are the final designs for China Airlines (top) and Jack in the Box floats.

Just a few of the millions of flowers that will be placed on the floats by December 31.

Getting gooey and messy while doing our little part to help.

This really was a messy job.

Richard and Valerie preparing mums to be glued on the floats.

Debbie (left), who works here, is from Ohio and was happy to be working on those red roses. On the bottom they are gluing the mums the SKPs had done to the Ohio State float. (right)

Jim and Nanc by the flames where our pretty sticks will go. Don't forget to look for the China Airlines float in the parade.

We spent four hours working on flowers to decorate floats for the parade. This is a labor intensive job that relies on volunteers who work thousands of man hours on each float. School groups, churches, seniors and groups like Escapees do the final work of cutting and gluing flowers in a sprint starting December 26 and ending New Year's Eve. Some in our group pinched the heads of mums, glued their backs and carried them to the floats to be installed. Nanc and I and several others glued cornmeal and straw flowers to branches that would look like a flame on the China Airlines float. This was a really messy but fun job. The company we worked with was doing four floats; China Airlines, Jack in the Box and the team floats for the O Ducks and O Bucks. The same team float designs are used for three or four years but the roses cannot be ordered until the first of December when they know which schools will be playing in the game. The planning for other floats starts in February with the design and concludes with this week of adding the natural coverings on every visible inch. As with everything else, the bad economy has affected the parade to the point neither FTD or Teleflora has entries this year. This was a great experience getting an up close and personal look at just a small bit of what goes into staging this event and will make viewing even more special. Don't forget to look for our handy work while you are watching the parade.