How to turn a few scrap pieces into a lovely wooden Christmas tree.

After Silke and I finished wrapping up our bathroom project I brought the remaining pieces of the trim board into the basement and set them off in the corner. The pieces were long enough to keep but realistically when would I ever use them?

Like all things that get set aside like that, somewhere in the back of my mind is the question, ‘what if?’. What if I need this for something else? Well, the question came full circle with those left over pieces of trim. Our monthly ‘This Old House‘ magazine arrived a few days ago and after paging through it, the leftover pieces of trim board suddenly had a purpose.

Using scrap pieces of wood to make a faux ‘Charlie Brown’ like wooden Christmas tree.

How to make a wooden Christmas tree

A picture in the magazine, with a small caption describing what they had done to put the wooden Christmas tree together, was all the inspiration I needed.

Once again I was ready to set off on another tangent of creativity. The first thing I did was cut the different length for the boards to resemble some type of a pyramid. When spaced apart the wooden pieces would then resemble a tree.

For the base, I notched out the two cross boards

so that they would fit together providing the tree some stability.

When it came time to assemble the trim boards I used a scrap piece of wood that acted as a spacer between the first and second trim boards. Once these boards were fastened I simply repeated the process as I continued to add the remaining pieces. With the base boards attached, the pile of scrap wood in the corner of our basement had suddenly taken on a new life of its own.

Once I had the boards that would act as the base and the main trunk pieces screwed together, I was ready to start painting our little wooden Christmas tree.

The trim boards were already white which seemed to resemble snow. Using some left over green paint from a previous DIY project and a sponge brush I merely added streaks of paint across each board. Another left over can of a darker brown was used to paint the base boards and trunk board.

All that was left do to make it into a Christmas Trees was to add some trim. 

This was a relatively simple kid-friendly DIY project!

Given my level of expertise, it was easy to put together. Maybe I should graduate to the next level and start working on that addition to the house? I’ll have to ask Silke first.

How do you like our wooden Charlie Brown Christmas tree? Leave us a comment below.