The idea was first raised in 1972 by the facility's head librarian at the time, Vivian Ellis, who was eager to decorate the building with a Christmas-related theme in time for the upcoming holiday season.

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The library itself had only been open for a year and had so far never accommodated anything even close to what Prospect High School's Art Teacher at the time, Fred McCullough, referred to as a "very ambitious project".

Mr McCullough had only been in Australia a year longer than the facility had been opened to the public, after migrating from Northern Ireland, however, at the age of 24 he was energetic and willing to undertake the challenging task.

He and his colleague in the school's art department, Des Murray, were approached by Ms Ellis, who suggested it might be an interesting idea to teach two classes worth of Grade eight and nine students - equating to 50 kids - how to decorate a building in such an intricate manner.

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"I had a background in stained glass from my time in art college back home, so I vaguely knew how to make it work, the only thing was that we couldn't use actual glass," Mr McCullough said.

Eventually, large sheets of double cushion cardboard were acquired from a friend of Mr McCullough, and the design of a star for the top three stories of the building was created, while Mr Murray made a similar plan for the building's bottom half.

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Students then cut out sections of the cardboard and filled them with various colours of cellophane, which was braced from behind by wooden batons and corner wedges to prevent the flimsy material from buckling from the heat caused by the summer sun. The artwork remained for two months.

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