The holiday season is upon us once again, and as usual, it's extremely busy. This year I decided I wanted to do something unique, I wanted to create a Metal Christmas Tree (no need to water it, no need to clean up after it, no complicated instructions with hundreds of pieces, just something I can plug in and be done). So I have done just that, I present the Chicken Wire Christmas Tree. This is a simple project that can be completed in a few hours of time, and has many uses. I even added a picture of my tree decorated for Valentine's Day!

Step 1: Materials

48" x 10' Chicken Wire (Poultry Netting)
Binding Wire
Metal Tomato Cage
Pliers
Christmas Lights

Step 2: Directions

1. Unroll the Chicken Wire. Be very careful when unrolling the Chicken Wire, the ends are very sharp. Having an extra set of hands for this project will make it much easier to do.

2. Place the Tomato Cage on the Chicken Wire.

3. Start wrapping the Chicken Wire around the Tomato Cage.

4. Keep wrapping the Chicken Wire around the Tomato Cage until it completely encloses the Tomato Cage.

5. Allow for a little overlap, and start cutting the Chicken Wire using the Pliers. Once you have completed this first pass of trimming, set aside the remaining Chicken Wire.

6. Near the bottom of the Tomato Cage (it will be inverted, to create the christmas tree shape), you can start connecting the Chicken Wire together, simply interlock and twist the ends together (the Pliers come in handy here as well).

7. I connected a good 4 or 5 of the bottom links together initially.

8. Now that you have the bottom connected, I started using a small 1-2 foot section of Binding Wire to connect the very bottom of the Chicken Wire to the bottom of the inverted Tomato Cage. This will secure it in place nicely. To start, wrap the Binding Wire around the Tomato Cage 3-4 times.

9. Work your way around, looping through each link of the Chicken Wire, being sure to keep it tight as you go. Once you have gone completely around, secure the binding wire at the other end as well.

10. Now that the bottom is secure, you can start working your way up, noting that due to the cone shape of the Tomato Cage, you will have to continue to trim off excess Chicken Wire as you go further up, in order to keep the overlap to a minimum. I used my Pliers and trimmed it diagonally as I worked my way up the Tomato Cage.

11. Once you have reached the top, and secured the Chicken Wire together, for reinforcement I used the Binding Wire again and ran it up from the very bottom of the cage along the seam, securing it tightly.

12. At the very top, I shaped the wire into a tip and connected together with Binding Wire.

13. For final reinforcement of the top, I used binding wire along each leg of the Tomato Cage, to secure the Chicken Wire in place. Start at the top of the leg, and work downwards until you reach the circular part of the Tomato Cage, clip, and secure.

14. Upon completion, my tree measures 4 feet 3 inches tall and 16 inches in diameter.

Step 3: Lighting

I used;

two sets of Indoor/ Outdoor Use LED Net-style lights Multi Colored Bulbs
three sets of Indoor/ Outdoor Use LED 16 Function Lights with 60 Multi Colored Bulbs

1. Wrap the net-style lights around the tree first, by placing one set of lights in the front and one set of lights in the back.

2. Wrap the function lights around the tree by spiraling the lights around the tree the in sections from top, center, and bottom.