Imagine having 192 little two foot trees snaking through the yard, each tree on a separate circuit and each circuit controlled by the computer. That’s what Chuck Smith did at PlanetChristmas way back in the 20th century. Words can’t describe how trees chased back and forth, flashed simultaneously and even stuttered. Kids actually ran down the street trying to keep up with the fast moving trees. These easy-to-build items are a crowd favorite and they’re also easy to store. Here’s how you build one of the trees. Keep repeating the process until you can’t stand it anymore!
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Here’s a close-up of one of the trees. Each tree has three, 100 light strings of multi-colored lights. The black wire wrapped around the bottom is an eight foot power cord. The trick to building these things is to have a lot of four inch tie wraps, black preferably. |
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Here is the raw easel as bought from the hobby or floral store. Note: you have to shorten two legs so they are all the same length. Bolt cutters work fine. |
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I built a little turntable with a plywood base the easel stands on. Secure the easel with tie wraps and secure the end of the first string to the tip of the tree. |
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The first layer of lights should be dense. Every place the wire crosses the easel, secure it with a tie wrap… this is needed to hold the lights in place when you wrap more lights on top. |
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With the first layer secured, continue wrapping the tree until all three strings are done. Secure the light strings at strategic locations with more tie wraps. This is needed so the lights will stay put when stacking and un-stacking them. |
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Cut off the tie wrap tails, attach a power cord and you’re done! |
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You can stack the trees four high and they take up very little space! |
