Items Needed: 8-9 Pieces of 10ft 40sch Gray Conduit (1 – 1 inch, 1 – 3/4 inch, and 6-7 – 1/2 inch Pieces), Conduit Glue, Drill and Drill Bit, Saw, Black Zip Ties, Light Strands, Green Spray Paint and at least 1 – 6ft piece of Green Fence Post.

First, let me say that this original idea was created by Richard Bowen at www.planetchristmas.com. He came up with the idea after wrapping and unwrapping the small real trees in his front yard, year after year in the freezing cold. After you complete this project, you only have to install and uninstall them each year. The installation is only suppose to last 3 Minutes (hence the project name), but it took us about 15 Minutes. For us, we needed a way to add some height to me display since we dont even have real trees in my yard anymore. We made 2 of these trees for my display this year. Both of our trees are about 10.5 ft tall. They sway in the wind like tree twig trees and look like real trees at night in the dark.

How To:

First (after we bought all the supplies needed), we cut 4 – 1 ft pieces out of the  1 inch conduit. I then cut 7 – 2 ft pieces out of the 3/4 inch conduit and then I cut varied lengths (from 7-10 Feet) out of the 1/2 inch conduit pieces. The 1 inch pieces are the bottom for stability and the 3/4 pieces help you convert from the 1 inch to the 1/2 inch. The wider the bottom of the conduit, the limbs will be. We then began gluing the pieces together. We didnt put a 1 inch – 1 ft piece on all 7 branches because we wanted a couple of the branches to really move. After the glue dried, we Spray Painted each piece with the Green Spray Paint and let it dry.

Wrapping 3 Minute Trees with a Potato Peeler from Brandon & Megan on Vimeo.

After all this, it was time to put the lights on the 7 branches. Since our branches were going to have 3 colors on each branch (green, red and white), we decided to make Mega Strands to keep from having to wrap each branch of each tree, 3x. We just braided all 3 strands together first, then wrapped the tree branches going up and over, over and over again. Each branch only takes 1 strand. So if you have 7 branches on your tree and only want 1 color on your tree, it would only take 7 strands of lights to complete this project. We attached the female ends of our strands to the small top part of each branch (the 1/2 inch end), by drilling a small hole at the top and then zip tying the strand to the conduit. And then we attached the male end to the bottom by doing the same thing. Note: Zip Tie the strand right after the last light. Leave the Male Plug Lead free to move around. This will help with installation when you  go to connect all 7 branches together. I didn’t do this originally but had to fix it once we installed the hole tree.

Installation is pretty easy. Drive 1 6ft Fence Post into the ground, where you want the 3 Minute Swag Tree to stand. Piece by piece begin to attach the branches to the fence post with the heaviest black Zip Ties you can find. Turn the pieces and move them around to help create the look you want. I suggest that you zip it pretty tight at the bottom and leave the middle of the branches pretty loose with your zips. This will allow it sway more in the wind. Its a great, easy project and it looks great in the end! Check out the pictures below (1st if of the bottom gathering after installation, the 2nd is of a trial run we did in the summer with rebar, and the 3rd is a picture of both trees in action during a part in the show).