Best DIY Outdoor Christmas Decorations
I promised to do a tutorial to show how we made one of our most popular outdoor decorations and I am glad to say I am finally able to carve out some time to write this post.
I am so glad we did this project because we literally, have people stopping on our street to take pictures of these babies. I take that as a serious compliment!
I am going to try to verbally explain it so that even without a step by step video you can picture how we made these metal trees. I set a reminder in my cell phone so that we can get a head start on Christmas Decor 2019 and make me some more. I want taller ones on the other side of our front yard. Color my husband and official metal fabricator perturbed.
Below you will find a materials list. But if you don't have access to a metal fabricator, then you can swap out the metal tubing and use wood posts and simply screw the metal sheets into them instead. No welding required.
The metal sheets we used are actually called Corrugated Steel Roof Panel at one of the big box stores. Others stores call it galvanized metal sheets. They sell these at Home Depot, Lowes or Menard's.
Materials List:
- 6 sheets of galvanized steel roofing. Each sheet measuring 8 feet long and 2.16 feet wide.
- 3 pieces of square metal tubing (2'' wide by varied heights) You can swap out tubing for something similar like 4" x 4" fence posts.
- Various scrap pieces of rebar (used as foot pegs and ground stakes to drive the trees into the ground)
- 1-1/2" Stainless steel screws
Tools needed:
Metal cutting tool or Tin Snips.
Measuring Tape
Pencil or marker
Drill
Please note the galvanized metal once cut is extremely sharp. I would not handle the edges without appropriate gloves! I also would not have these in my yard where young children are playing unless we covered the edges to protect from getting sliced open. I'm sure one walk through a Lowes or Home Depot and you can find something suitable to cover the edges. Maybe the tape they use for ducting? It's called Foil Based Mastic Tape. Or if you want to get extreme, you could flat steel and bend the edges over to soften them. I use this because it's a lot cheaper.
Also, we decided to use ground stakes in the ground instead of building a wood stand (to hold the tree up) due to our high winds. We don't have to worry about these tipping over in 40 MPH windy days.
Since each square tube (or wood post if you prefer) has 4 sides we cut 4 "right" triangles per side, and per tree. 3 trees equals 12 "right" triangles. We made one large, medium and a small tree. I also asked my master craftsman not to cover or plug the holes in the top of the square tubing as I am hoping to add stars one day. Or my outdoor version of a tree topper.
We started by cutting four "right" triangles for the tallest tree first because we wanted to see if any scraps could be used for the smallest tree. Thereby saving on material. Note below the foot peg made from scrap rebar Greg welded so he could stake the trees in the ground. He also used scrap round bar when he could. He is notorious for finding some good scraps leftover from other projects.
He drilled pilot holes in the metal triangles and then more pilot holes in the square tubing (or wood posts that's what you chose) and screwed each triangle on one side of the post.
I made a quick diagram of the post and the triangle shape to help. It looks kind of cheesy I know, but maybe it will help.
Below here they are all being hit with spot lights.
I hope to be able to do 3 more super skinny and taller ones next year. But I said that back in 2017 after I saw these all lit up.
Merry Christmas!
