Sunday, December 13, 2009

Tomato Cage Trees

Every year at Thanksgiving my mom, sisters, aunt and I do a craft. This year we did tomato cage trees. My sister's ward did them as a craft and we loved the idea. So here's how we made ours...

Start with tomato cages. I bought all of these at home depot for about $2.80 each. They were the larger 4 tier ones.

Photobucket

Then we started by bending down the points. This was a team effort. The purpose for this was to give a place on top of the tree to add the bow. It would just sit in the middle of the bent wire.

Photobucket

Then we found some garland at wal mart $4 for 9 ft. Later I found some for $2 for 9ft but it wasn't as thick. I bought it later and used and it worked fine though.

Start at the bottom and work your way up. We wrapped the garland around the outside of the straight sides and then every once in a while wrapped it around the round layers to hold it in place. Once you get to the top you can just cut the excess garland off with wire cutters.

Photobucket


They work perfect in kids rooms. As soon as we got home the kids each picked a tree and took it in their rooms to decorate. A strand of 100 lights filled the trees perfectly. I had other ideas for the trees but the kids were so excited about them that I just let them have them and decorate them how they wish. I had bought some pretty Christmas ribbon for a bow, some berry garland and red beaded garland but oh well.

Sorry for the bad photos.

A purple one for Sydney...

Photobucket

and blue lights for Theron. Seriously, how cute is this...

Photobucket


Photobucket

I think the total cost per tree was about $12 including the lights!

5 comments:

Jill@Barnes Yard said...

Fun idea! I love it!
-Jill

Alison said...

what a great idea - why did you bend the tops down? we need a tree alternative to tide us over until the after Christmas specials on the artificial trees. Dang allergies and they aren't even mine (Jeff)!

Unknown said...

Great idea I love it and can't wait to try it next year!

kanishk said...

I love it!

mortgage audit

Shawna said...

Alison, we bent the top part down as a place for a bow or star to sit on the top. I was going to make a big fluffy bow but as you can see my trees turned into the kids trees.