I’ve been trying to figure out how to decorate the massive planter on our front porch for Christmas for a while now. We can’t move the planter because it weighs a ton on its own and we filled it with rocks and dirt so it’s at least 300 pounds. So I had to come up with a way to use it in our outside Christmas decor. Enter the tomato cage Christmas tree.
Here’s what you’ll need.
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| 1 tomato cage, 1 strand of 100 lights*, 3 strands of 9 foot garland*, zip ties |
I started by attaching my strand of lights to my garland with zip ties. You don’t have to do this, I figured it would help disperse the lights evenly.
I used 1 strand of lights on 2 strands of garland.
*I miscalculated how much garland I needed. I could have used 4 strands instead of 3 for more coverage. So I if you want full coverage go with 4 strands of garland and 2 strands of lights. Because I miscalculated, I used 3 strands of garland, 1 strand of 100 lights, and 1 strand of 50 lights. Whew. I hope you got all of that.
I used pliers to bend the stakes of the tomato cage together to form a point. I secured the point with a zip tie.
I started at the bottom (well, actually the top) of the tomato cage and started wrapping upward. I secured the garland to the cage by wrapping pieces of the garland onto the cage.
Keep wrapping the garland around the cage until you get to the top.
I shifted the garland slightly up on the cage because I put the bottom section into the soil in the planter. To secure the tree from blowing over, I used some extra landscaping bricks and covered them with soil. I added a bow and some poinsettias to the tree to give it some pizzazz.
This project took about an hour from start to finish.
Here’s the breakdown of my costs:
tomato cage: free
garland: $9 (Black Friday find at JoAnn)
lights: $2.50 (Walmart)
zip ties: free (thanks, honey!)
bow: $2.50 (JoAnn)
poinsettias: free (leftover from last Christmas)
GRAND TOTAL: $14
We hope to get all of our outside Christmas lights up this week. I’ll be sure to share photos with you once we get them up.
Want to learn how to make 3 different tomato cage Christmas trees in varying heights by using 3 tomato cages of the same size? Check out my tutorial here!
Twins!! This is too funny. I had 2 HUGE tomato cages in my living room floor yesterday that I was going to do this craft on until I went into the basement for supplies and found where I had bought 3 pop up, pre lit Christmas trees on clearance last year! I put those suckers up instead, but yours looks great. I LOVE that bow on top! Well done 🙂
Sorry but how long the tomato cage measure? thanks.
I use 54 inch high tomato cages.
I love it!! Way to utilize something you can’t change (or move in this case). And for it not to cost very much – gosh, what a deal!! I may be trying this myself…
This looks amazing! Great job!!
I saw this on Pinterest. I like when people I “know” tackle these things though. Looks fantastico!
So cute! I love the poinsettia and bow you added as well. Great job! 🙂
I had heard about tomato cage trees! This turned out great! I am so glad I found you through Tip Junkies party! I would love for my readers to meet you. My “Meet Me Monday” party is still going on if you would like to share this project or another! I plan to browse around either way! Thanks! Love, Me http://youaretalkingtoomuch.blogspot.com/2011/11/meet-me-monday-13.html
I love it! Such a cute idea…yours turned out great!
So pretty! Would LOVE it if you would link this up at my turquoise lovin’ party going on right now!! (and red during the holidays!) http://www.sweetlittlegals.com/2011/11/turquoise-lovin-15.html
How cute! I wanted to do the same thing, but didn’t know where I could find tomato cages at the end of November (granted, I didn’t even look, so it wasn’t a very big effort . . . ). It looks so great!
I found some at Ace Hardware. The big building supply stores didn’t have them.
love that! i’d seen that on pinterest too…if only i had a porch or entrance to do that. there’s no room by my front door. love the sparkle and the pointsettias.
My daughter is in a small apartment and won’t be there for Christmas so I made one for her to enjoy and get in the spirit.
LOVE this idea! Isn’t Pinterest the best? I am definitely going to give this a try. Thanks for sharing!
I love this… so thrifty and so adorable!
Such a clever idea! It turned out great!
what a great idea! thanks for sharing! visiting from transformation thursday 🙂
Oh my gracious! That is like brillian smart! So stinkin’ cute! I love it!
Great idea! Definitely easier on the pocketbook than buying the ready-made ones!
What a fantastic idea!
I’d love for you to share this project over at my Inspiration Party at Simply Christmas ~ http://shabbyartboutique.blogspot.com/2011/12/inspiration-friday.html
so so pretty! would’ve never thought of doing that! very creative 🙂 happy new follower!
What a clever idea, perfect project as I have everything needed already, thank you for the inspiration.
🙂 Lori m
I love the lights! We did this last year with tinsel garland and held the cage down with tent stakes in the front flowerbed. It has rained so much in the last week, I can’t even get to the shed to start decorating…so I am very jealous of you…LOL. Thanks for sharing!
I wish I would have seen this before I hung up all of my garlands. 🙂 Maybe I’ll have to go buy a few more. I think it’s darling!
I would love you to submit this to the Make and Takes spotlight page–http://www.makeandtakes.com/spotlight
This is the cutest thing! Thanks for the tutorial. I’ve heard about these tomato cage Christmas trees and thought how fun it would be to make one, but the thought just stayed in my head! 😉 What a welcoming sight to your guests!
be a sweetie,
Shelia 🙂
You’ve been featured over at House of Hepworths!
Congrats!
Great idea. It is so easy, I hope to do more than one and put a couple on my patio for my back yard neighbors to enjoy.
Gather my things up to make my Tomato Cage Trees. Grandson and I will be making them this weekend! Such a cute idea! Thanks for sharing
Thank you so much for sharing this!!! I ran to the store and bought the supplies! I am going to be doing a craft show selling ornaments and was ALL over the internet trying to find ideas! Yours trees are perfect!!! I plan on talking about it on my blog, I will link you so others can come see the tutorial you have! I told my husband it was money well spent because not only can I use it for the show, but for us too here at the house! Thanks again!
I used the tomato cage, covering it with 150 white mini lights, covering it with 80′ of white/silver garland and hung 40 each mini balls in purple and hot pink. This was very pretty (and different) if you wanted something other than the traditional tree.
I bought these artificial trees that came in urns a few years back – they were already pre-lit but I had the worse time keeping them from blowing over. Last year I thought I would put sand in the urn and OMG what a mess it made – the trees are heavier than the urn even with sand. But maybe bricks of some sort would help keep them from blowing over – not sure – but they look really nice when they can stand up straight – ha!! Thanks for sharing your idea – love it!!
Linda
i love this! i might have to make it for our stoop this year.. i’ll let you know how it turns out. – ash
I love this idea! I have a big planter that I want to repurpose (it was a flower tower that I made over the summer) and I think it would be great to use it to make a mini tree for my home’s front porch. Great idea! Thanks so much for posting.
This is gorgeous! If it wasn’t a few weeks before Christmas I would make one for my front deck. I found this pin on Pinterest and i’m a new follower through Pinterest, Twitter, & Bloglovin.
When you say 4 “strands” of garland and 2 “strands” of lights, how many feet are we talking about? Garland and lights come in different lengths. Thanks!
My Mom did something like this many years ago , only she used chicken wire and hung it upside down in the corner of the living room to keep the little ones from pulling it over . looked good and worked very well as it was in a mobile home !
My Mom did this years ago In her mobile home because of limited space and to keep kids from knocking it over , she used chicken wire and hung the tree upside down in the corner of the ceiling. But this cage seems a little easier ! thank you !
By the time I’m done making 3 of these i’m going to have 3 Christmas trees in my front yard. One will be green..one will be red. then with the leftovers from those 2 I’ll do the 3rd..then add lights.
Hi and thank you for this idea
I wanted to ask your opinion maybe idea
My family is on a tight budget because I’ve been unable to work due to surgeries and taking care of my Mother In Law
But I’m wanting a Christmas tree that’s not expensive
I know I can get garland and decorations at the dollar tree but I was thinking maybe I could use your idea inside and use a couple tomato planters? What’s your thoughts ideas?
Please and Thank you
Victoria Nicole
Instead of a big Christmas tree? You could. But I know Walmart has some pretty inexpensive Christmas trees– I saw a 6.5 ft pre-lit tree for $40, and they might have some cheaper than that on Black Friday.
I covered my tomato cages with strands of lights and we decorate the yard with them!
Everyone loves them and they look so Christmasy!