Alrighty folks, so there are DIY’s like the dresser we repurposed in last month’s Redbook (complicated), and then there are “you don’t have to know the difference between a flathead and a phillips” DIY’s, like this one. You know how much I love a really simple project that is not only cheap but high impact. So with that said and drumroll please… I present to you ladies and gentlemen – the Holiday Card Tomato Cage Display. Get to it.
I love holiday cards (I’ve GOT to get on them!!) for the same reason we all love facebook – the ‘Ooh, I wonder what they are up to?’ syndrome, and we are just getting of the age where people actually send them to us. So this is a simple, fun, and totally useful project that you can make with your family. All you need is a few simple tools, some trim, and all of those cute christmas cards that you are already starting to receive in the mail. Is it just me or are they coming earlier and earlier this year? When do you all have the time????
So, here is how its done:
Items Needed:
Tomato Cage – (we picked ours up from Lowes, but they can be sourced in many different sizes both online and at your local hardware store)
Spray Paint – (choose whatever color you want to go with your home decor – we used white)
Clothes Pins – (you can find mini ones at Michael’s, Target or JoAnn’s Fabrics – in lots of different colors, too)
Pom Pom – (we made ours use some yarn and one of the many tutorials that you can find online or you can purchase one here)
Ball Trim Fringe – (this could be substituted out for rope, twine, ribbon, fringe or any other decorative element that you want to add to your tree, we ended up using about 2 yards for our tree)
1. Spray Paint: we spray painted our tomato cage white so that it would go with my holiday theme this year, but you can paint yours any color that you want so that it goes with your other decorations.
2. Wrap and Glue Trim: using a hot glue gun you will attach the ball fringe to the supports of the tomato cage. When you get back around to the beginning of where you started you can trim the excess with some good scissors, glue it down and move onto the next part of the tree.
3. Attach Pom: We used one of the many online tutorials to make our the pom-pom that decorated the top of our tree. You could also use a bow, a tree topper, or anything else to hold the three open wires of the tree together.
4. Decorate with your Cards: now its time to actually have fun (as if you havent been having a ball already) and decorate out your new holiday card holder with all of your holiday cards. You could also pin-up photos, ornaments, or anything else to get this tree looking festive.
Resources: White and Gold Pillar Candle Holder: Target | White and Gold Tree: Target | White Vase: Target | Wood and Brass Console: Vintage | Cards on Tree: Green White and Brown: Tiny Prints (no longer available) | Blue Stripe | Black and White Joy | Black and White Noel | New Years: | all others are custom
And just so you can see how much we obsess over every little detail in the pic we created a fun little GIF so that you can see our process.
One of our favorite things is when the issue finally comes out and we get to see all the photoshop changes that the editors decided to make after we sent them our final images. Here you can see some of those changes. I mean who knew that when you flip through the pages of a magazine even professionally styled and photographed images are then altered even further to fit the page, layout, and magazine better.
This is what we noticed:
Pom Pom changed from gold to pink, ball trim changed from silvery lavender to pink, extra holiday cards added and saturated, wall color changed to blue, entire card holder made skinner! What did you catch that we might have missed?
Thanks to David Tsay for the beautiful after photography, and don’t forget to check out all of our other DIY projects below:
Side Table Ikea Hack, DIY Towel Ladder , Embossed Velvet Heart Pillow, Office Wall Pockets, DIY Tree Slab Table, DIY Basket Pendant, Table Runner