looking for construction suggestions for simple small trees

[wrxin]

Hello, I'm just looking for any simple suggestions for constructing 4 small - say 3ft tall Christmas trees to line the front edge of one side of our yard. No mega tree requirement or anything too complicated. This is my first year at this and I'm starting "simple" (not sure if light animation can really be defined as simple  ). I'd really appreciate any pointers.

I'm starting this year with Vixen software, a 16 channel LE, and a bunch of LED lights I already owned from previous years.

Thanks!

Mark

[Steve Gase]

The easiest/cheapest solution is to got to your local nursery and get tomato cages.  Invert them.  I also use landscaping staples to 'fasten' them to the ground.

Wrap the cages (now trees) with strings of lights.  I've used a couple strings of white that I make one channel, and another set of strings that are colored string.  With 8 trees you can have one white channel per tree, and 1 more channel per tree using the colored.  this will let you sequence them back an forth.

but if you want to use some of your 16 vixen channels for other things, you can make 8 channels be the sequenced white and connect all of the 8 colored strings together to create a single 9th channel.  so many ways to do this, and none of them are wrong.

[wbuehler]

Very Basic Mini-Trees

[Steve Gase]

how cute!  your's have stilts!! 

no doubt to make them visible over obstructions.  I need to do something similar.  nice idea.

[wrxin]

The tomato cages are a great idea! Thank you.

[shaunkad]

you may have trouble finding them this time of year craft stores sell a floral easel that work with some modifications to them. Planet Christmas has a few write ups on how to make them.

[mms]

Tomato cages of various sizes work well.  I "weave" my lights so that the lights are at the front of the display.

My dad made a tree using pie pans, 1x2s, and C9 lights.

You could make a simple mega tree using PVC.

Lots of possibilities, and welcome to the world of blinky flashy...

[wrxin]

Thanks again for the ideas and the welcome. I'm watching a video from RJ (Smart Strings Demo 2) right now to understand more about smart strings (for next year and a new budget!).

[lineman]

I built all 10 in a day its not as simple as the tomato cages but I did not want to worry about shorts on the wire, I read about a few people haveing the gfi trip when the gruond is wet and it always rains in FL anyhoo here are some pic's

[wrxin]

Thanks you lineman, those are pretty neat too. Good point about the shorting issue.

[jnealand]

I have 16 mini trees made by using floral wreath stands which can be found at lots of home decor stores, like Garden Ridge, Joanns, etc.  I use 3 100 ct incans on them - one each of red, green, and clear.  My goal is to replace / rebuild them using LEDs since If I turn all the lights on all 16 trees at once they pull over 18amps.  In contrast everything on my house - roof, gutters, windows, doors, porch columns, etc and my mega tree use less than 2 amps total when all on.  That tells you the difference with using LEDs for lights.

[bcstuff]

I use the floral easels too.

I only wrap 2 sides so I get more light density facing the audience with my 100 ct LED of each color.

This year I re-wrapped them with 4 colors each RGBW.

[z327]

I used two different sizes of floral tripods that I picked up for cheap at Hobby Lobby. Wrapped each in Red, Green and Blue.