I aspire to be crafty, but I don’t enjoy the crafting process very much. I know what I want to create, but I would rather skip over all the detail work and have my finished product in hand!
But these little trees came together so easily! I had seen similar ones in craft and decorating stores, but never in the right sizes or at the right price. I told my sis-in-law what I was looking for and she in turn told my father-in-law who surprised me with these wooden tree cutouts! (Thanks, Janna and Pawpaw!)
Plywood is great for a project like this because it will survive even in storage, but before I received these, I was considering creating my own trees on foam board. It’s an inexpensive and lightweight option, though it’s not as durable.
But now for the decorating!
There was almost no end to the colors and designs I could have chosen, but I wanted traditional greens and reds, and I didn’t want to get too crazy with the designs. You can’t go wrong with stripes and polka dots!
I like the ease of spray paint, but for some of the detail on this project, it wasn’t the best option. Acrylic paint is cheap and it goes on easily. Two coats with a cheap paint brush gave me a good base coat.
Painter’s tape made the striping process easier, and though my homemade circle stencil wasn’t perfect, it served its purpose and helped me create a basic dot design. I had to wait an hour or so for each layer to dry, but then I could readjust the painter’s tape to create thin stripes adjacent to my thicker ones.
Voila! Are these adorable or what? And what I love about a project like this is that mistakes are never final: I can always paint over them!
I wanted three trees, but now I find myself wanting an entire forest of them! But that was probably my only Christmas DIY project for the year.
What about you? What was/is your DIY Christmas project this year? I hope you’ll share explanations AND pics in the comments!
