Tomato Cage Christmas Trees

 

 Tomato Cage Christmas Trees

I love to decorate for Christmas, but for some crazy reason, I rarely put up decorations around my door or on my front porch, other than my favorite Christmas wreath.  However, this year, the in-laws were coming for Christmas, so I decided to make my front porch a little more festive! I've always loved the sparkly trees that come in pretty urns for Christmas, but those were a little out of my budget.  So, after watching an episode of P. Allen Smith Garden Home a few weeks back, I decided to give making my own trees a try.  I was really surprised how easy they were to make.  

I got almost all of the supplies I needed at my local Home Depot.  The rest were leftover Christmas decorations or supplies.   For this project I used the following supplies:

2 metal tomato cages (they cost less than $4 each)
2 boxes of 144 mini net light sets (the kind that go over shrubs, etc)
Duct tape
wire Christmas ornament hooks
30 foot roll of green mesh
Christmas ribbon

The first thing I did was use the Duct tape to secure the loose ends of the tomato cages to form a point (the top of my Christmas tree).

Next, I wrapped the net Christmas tree lights around the tomato cage starting at the bottom and working my way up the cage, securing the lights by using the wire ornament hooks as twist ties.

Then wrap the green mesh around the tomato cage, starting at the bottom.  (Sorry no picture for this step)  When you get to the top of the "tree", take the remaining mesh and tie a bow with some pretty Christmas ribbon.  To hold the mesh in place, I used a few more wire ornament hooks to secure the mesh to the cage.  That's it!  You're done! 

Note:  In this example, I used lime green mesh that I had left over from another project.  I think if I were to make these again, I would buy a darker green color mesh.  When not lit up, they looked fine, but when I turned them on at night, the mesh looked more "yellowish" than I would have liked.
 

Here is what they looked like lit up on my porch with the decorations around my door and the matching wreath I made.  

 Simple wreaths I made to hang below my coach lights on each side of the garage.

 Here is the simple wreath I literally threw together with all of the leftover mesh, 

ornaments and ribbon.  Not too bad for being made from scraps!

I hope you had a very Merry Christmas and that the New Year is full of blessings for you and your family.

Blessings,

Melony

aka Cleverly Creative Girl

 

Quick & Easy Christmas Gift Idea!

 Quick & Easy Christmas Gift Idea

Shortly after Thanksgiving, I was scrolling through Pinterest and came across this cute little idea for a quick and easy gift for friends, neighbors, etc.  I thought it was a great idea, but decided to give it my own little touch by rewriting the poem and stamping the cards with festive Christmas presents for decoration.  

On a tight budget, this year I decided to give this little gifts to the other kindergarten teachers and assistants that I work with at school.  At Michael's, I found super cute Christmas wrapping paper on sale half price and bought bulk Scotch tape at Home Depot.  I tried to pick out wrapping paper that I felt like suited their personalities and styles.  

Once the paper was picked out and the tape was purchased, I decided to rewrite the poem.  This is what I came up with:

You've been shopping.

Hardly stopping.

No time for napping.

Time to get wrapping!

No tissue or paper to spare?

Here's some to show I care.

Merry Christmas!

I printed up the poem using my computer and cut them into squares.  Then I simply cut squares of red cardstock that made a 1/4 inch border around the poem.  Then I added the Christmas presents stamp in green ink.  I attached the poem and Scotch tape with red or white tulle ribbon I had left over from another project.  Easy-peasy!

These were a huge hit with my co-workers and took the worry out of what to get each of them.  So, that alone, was priceless.  Hope you like this idea.

Have a blessed day,

Melony

aka "Cleverly Creative Girl"