Easy DIY Fall Leaves Potted Topiary Tree from a Tomato Cage

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Now that it's September, fall decorating is in full swing at my house. While I'm not happy about the cooler temperatures I do love decorating for the fall season. I'm sure I have enough decorations to keep any decor enthusiast happy but I just couldn't help myself when I saw a picture of a tomato cage fall tree on Judy's wonderful crafty Facebook page, My Heart Beats.

I'd been brainstorming how to use two urn planters in front of my fireplace for a fall decoration project. I was pretty set on using some kind of pumpkins and fake leaves but really this crafty project looked way too easy to pass up. Plus I already had almost everything I needed. 

Fall Leaves Tree Supplies

• tomato cage (or 2)
• fake fall leaves garland (enough to cover your tomato cage)
• urn planter (or 2)
• clear Christmas lights 

First I brought in 2 tomato cages from outside. I have about 10 tomato cages outside to protect newly planted shrubs and trees from our (apparently starving) dogs who have a taste for any kind of greenery that is invading their yard. Last year I planted 6 infant arborvitae bushes and used the tomato cages to protect them from our ravenous dogs. They worked for the dogs but my black thumb struck again and only one lonely fellow made it through the winter. So now I have a ton of tomato cages being neglected in the corner of the yard just waiting for me to use for some crafty project or to try killing growing another bush or two.

I set the cages on the urn planters and noticed they were super tall and the bottom hoop was a little too large and slid past the lip of the urn. I immediately came up with an easy fix. I knew these tomato cages weren't the highest quality because a couple of the hoops had come off just from me pushing them in the ground. I brought in one cage that already had a missing hoop and asked Cory to pull one off the other cage. He bent it and pulled on it but couldn't get the hoop off. So I set it on the floor and stepped on it and pulled on the top and the hoop popped right off :). I then bent the bottom spokes in to rest on the planters because they were so tall that I would have had to spend a small fortune on fake leaves to cover them sufficiently. I also bent the spokes together at the top to help create a tree shape.

After all the bending and breaking I set the tomato cages on the urns to see how they would work. They did indeed resemble topiary trees which was the look I was going for.

I then gathered up some fall fake leaves garland. This was the only part of the project that I didn't have on hand. I have a ton of fake leaves garland, just none to spare for my the sake of my new decoration. So I splurged a little and bought 12 sets at Walmart for $36. Totally more than I wanted to spend but I figured if I didn't use them all I could return them and I really wanted to have full leaf coverage on my trees.

I then started wrapping the garland around the tomato cage.

This is how it looked after wrapping one garland. I tucked the ends in so the leaves would not unravel.

I kept wrapping and tucking...

When I was finally done I trudged on down to the basement and stole a couple of strands of clear lights from the Christmas lights tote, grabbed my assistant for encouragement and snacks, (all this wrapping was making us hungry) and started winding lights around my leafy trees.

After I was done winding lights I decided to tuck them under the leaves to create a softer look and to hide the wires.

Here's a few pictures of the finished trees.

Since I had most of the supplies I ended up spending less than $20 a tree. I could have spent even less but I didn't want any open space in my trees.

I just love how they turned out! They have created a wonderful, warm autumn atmosphere in my home :). Hope this has inspired you all to get to your fall decorating!!

Until the next time,

*Update: I have a lot of people ask me why I didn't put the lights on first and then the leaves. Well, I'm so used to decorating Christmas trees and positioning the lights where I want them so I naturally put them on last, plus the leaves don't hide the lights when you do it this way. I also did find that when the strand of lights goes out it, is so much easier to take it off if you have the lights on the outside.