The Bellagio hotel has an area called the conservatory that gets redecorated seasonally. For Halloween, they had this talking tree as part of the display. After about 10 years, they retired this tree and had a new one made. This tree ended up in a local aution house, but it was so huge, no one would bid on it, so we got it for pennies on the dollar. We have a couple of friends that build props and effects for Cirque du Soleil, so they came to the auction house and cut it into several pieces (the inside is a steel armature), put it on a flatbed and got it to our housel. It took about a week to reassemble, because the branches had to be reorientated to fit within the space. Then an artist friend spent about two weeks restoring the foam and fiberglass skin, which was damaged when it was cut apart. The eyes even move!