Rustic Wood Christmas Tree

What can you do with odd sized, cut off wood pieces.

Turn them into an outside or inside Rustic Wood Christmas Tree.

With moving here, I gave quite a bit of my Christmas decorations away, but that gave me a chance to change things up this year. Since moving here to Madison, I have been on the 'Upcycling' and giving old wood a make over, into something new ( For me that is) 

I had slats of wood stacked up in my bedroom, some cut offs from some of my previous wood projects. Plus some longer wood pieces from my local thrift store ( Which only cost a $1 ! Each )

*Tip, next time you want wood, try looking in the thrift store by the bed frames, you'll be surprised at what you can find *

Start by laying 1 longer piece of wood on the bottom, this is what you'll screw the cross pieces of wood to.

Then taking your other bits of wood, lay down on top to get the design you want.

You do want it to look like the outline of a Christmas Tree.

I marked where I wanted to make my cuts then numbered the wood, to know which order they would go in.

Then using a jigsaw, I cut the wood to size.

Seeing as this was going to be used outside, I didn't sand the edges down. If you plan on using it inside, then give you edges a little sanding.

I drew a simple Star shape on paper, then cut around that, laid it on a cut off piece of wood, traced around it then cut it out, using a jigsaw. 

Then with all your pieces of wood cut and ready to go, lay then back down, in the right order on the longer piece of wood and using  2 wood screws, on each piece, screw them into place.

Adding the star on last.

And what to do with the small cut off pieces of wood - Easy

My girls played all day with the left over bits of wood!! I did sand all the edges down to be safe.

Time to paint. 

I didn't want one color so I mixed a few different greens to make a different color for each slat of wood.

I painted each slat, using a brush, then using a rag, wiped off the excess paint.

Then using an old dried up sponge, I added some depth around the edges, using black paint

This is how it looks.

For the base, I cut open an empty Gallon Sized Milk Carton and using 2 bags of Quick Set Cement, then stuck the bottom of my tree into it and left it to harden.

Once hardened, I wrapped some Drop cloth around it.

Next step was to chalk the words, 

We Wish You A Merry Christmas. Then using Acrylic Paint in White and Red I painted over my chalk letters. Then I added some Elmers glue to the edges of each wood and sprinkled Glitter on top and left to dry.

I then put the base of the tree into a galvanized bucket and wrapped Christmas fabric around it.

My Rustic Wood Christmas Tree

Ho-ho-ho 

Merry Christmas

Here it is before I added some white Christmas Lights.

All lit up and ready for Christmas