Two Twenty One

Tomato Cage Christmas Tree

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.
GREAT tutorial! It only cost her $14 to make this!

Here’s what you’ll need.

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!
How to make tomato cage Christmas trees! Plus, how to make three different sizes!

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Comments

  1. 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 🙂

    Reply

  9. 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!

    Reply

    • 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.

      Reply

  20. 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!

    Reply

  21. 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

    Reply

  22. 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 🙂

    Reply

  24. 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.

    Reply

  26. 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!

    Reply

  27. 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.

    Reply

  28. 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

    Reply

  30. 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.

    Reply

  31. 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.

    Reply

  32. 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!

    Reply

  33. 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 !

    Reply

  34. 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 !

    Reply

  35. 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.

    Reply

  36. 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

    Reply

  37. I covered my tomato cages with strands of lights and we decorate the yard with them!
    Everyone loves them and they look so Christmasy!

    Reply

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