Tomato Cage Trees

I came up with this idea about 7 years ago at the Nutcracker Market. This year I had to re-do my trees, so I decided to document the process. The entire process took about 2 hours.
1. Turn the tomato cages upside down and bend the legs so they can be tapped together. Tear off a piece about 2 inches long and then tear that into 3 strips, one for each tree. Tape the legs together.

2. Spray the tree a coordinating color to how you want to decorate it. I choose copper to look more like bark.
3. Cut the netting or tulle so that it is is wide enough to wrap around the bottom of the tree 2 times and tall enough to cover the tree from top to bottom plus 3 inches.
4. Fold the netting in 1/2 and sew it the bottom of the cage using a 1 inch seam allowance. Use thick fishing line since it will not degrade over the years like string would.

5. Gather the top edges of the netting and tie off with a length of the fishing line. Trim top.

6. If you want minimalists trees that will show the netting, then spray it with glitter now.

HINT: Fluff the garland. Left side of the picture is what it looked like pre-fluff, right side is fluffed.

7. Starting at the top wrap garland around the tree. Bend the non-decorative part of the garland into a circle hook to go around the tied off part at the top. Use either fishing line or those plastic coated wires that come from all those kids toys packaging to secure the garland to the cage in intervals of about a foot or so. Add a second garland to make the tree fuller.

8. Fill in with tinsel type garland or ribbons.
9. Put on finishing touches; ornaments, stars, ribbons, ect.

I put these on my front porch every year so I use shatter proof ornaments. I use some netting with fake snow crystals on it to cover the bottoms and bring it all together.