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DIY Wooden Christmas Tree

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The kids and I had such a good time making our wooden pumpkin and our wood snowman, we decided to make a fun wooden Christmas Tree. This DIY wooden Christmas tree was fun to make just like the others–and the kids had a blast decorating it with pine cones. If we keep this up we will have wooden porch decor for every occasion, but I am not complaining.

Since this Christmas tree is not overly complicated or time-consuming, if the kids wanted to, we could make these as gifts for grandparents to decorate their porch. Because their design is so simple, there’s not much to wear out or break, so they’ll last forever. Plus, this is the perfect complement to all the porch decorations you can buy, like the perfect backdrop for a little Santa or even our already made snowman.

Easy DIY Wood Christmas Tree

If you’re ready to get your wooden porch decorations for Christmas ready, let’s get started making this easy DIY wooden Christmas tree.

Check out these other Christmas DIYs, We show you how to sew a Christmas Stocking, an Advent Pillow, a Pet Christmas Stocking, and even Christmas gifts anyone can sew!

WOODEN CHRISTMAS TREE SUPPLIES

Christmas Tree Supplies

Three fence planks, not the fancy wide ones or anything. Just the cheapest ones they have at your local hardware store or you can even use pallet wood if you like. They’re 3 ½-inches wide and very thin, although, sometimes they’re rough-cut. If they’re rough, you’ll want to start by planing them down or sanding their length, because the rough-cut does not finish well.

There’s no template for what sizes you want to cut these, so there’s no free printable pattern or anything. So, for materials other than the wood you’ll just need some decorations. My kids wanted to decorate our tree with pine cones and a big buffalo check bow they found in the craft room, but you can find a similar one on Amazon here.

And then you’ll need some paint. I used white chalkboard paint as well as a grey stain I had on hand. Now, why chalkboard paint rather than just straight white? Well, there’s a texture to the chalk paints that plain white paint doesn’t have. So, for these projects I like to do with the farmhouse style, I prefer to use the chalk-textured paint, so that the grey stain has a little bit of something to stick to, whereas with the regular paint, it’s slicker and the dry brushing technique just doesn’t give you the same result. 

TOOLS

Supplies image 2

A scroll saw or jigsawsandpaperhot glue and glue gunpaintbrushes and a flat place to assemble this DIY wooden Christmas tree decor. Basically everything you have in a typical workshop, so nothing fancy.

Now, you don’t have to use a scroll saw or table saw, you can certainly use a hand saw, but it’s going to take quite a bit longer, so just be aware. Now, onto the actual project.

DIY WOODEN CHRISTMAS TREE

Cut Wood

You’ll want to start by cutting off one length of wood at 42-inches. This will be the trunk of your tree and hold the entire thing together, so pick your best, straightest piece of wood, if you have one that’s less warped than others (fence panels are always kind of wonky).

Angle Wood Cut

Then you want to set your miter saw to 15-degrees (I used my miter saw, because it was easiest, frankly, but you can do this by hand if you want, just draw your line with a pencil and an angle). Cut out each of the following lengths (approximately) to create the tree shape, using a 15-degree angle cut one each end to create a trapezoid shape out of each board:

Wood Cut with Angles
  1. 30-inches
  2. 27-inches
  3. 24-inches
  4. 21-inches
  5. 15-inches
  6. 13-inches
  7. 9-inches
  8. 7-inches
  9. 4-inches
Wood Tree Laid out

Note for this DIY wooden Christmas tree you can adjust the lengths of the boards and even use fewer boards if you want, it is all about the look you are going for. On a flat space, line the fence panels up how you want them to stand on your porch. Meaning, line up the centers and make your tree shape. If anything looks out of place or too wide or too short, this is your chance to fix it.

Hot Glue Trunk of Christmas Tree

Hot glue the long centerpiece (the trunk) from step 1 onto the back of the fence panels lined up to make the tree shape. This will hold the Christmas tree together. Be sure to use plenty of hot glue and press down firmly so that the two pieces bond well. If one of the branches falls off, you can always hot glue it back in place, but it’s nice if you don’t have to redo your work.

Sand Wood Tree

Sand the entire shape, taking care to round all the corners and edges. I invited the kids to help me with this step, but they were not interested.

Paint Wood White

Once everything is as smooth as you can stand it, paint the entire tree white. Now, when I invited the kids to help me with this step, they were all in. So much so that we all had to have a shower afterward to scrub off the extra paint. Fun times.

White Christmas Tree

Make sure the paint dries all the way before moving on otherwise you will end up with a mess and have to touch up the white again. I do my best to get it done right the first time.

Grey stain on Tree

Now that the white paint is dry, you will need to dry brush the entire tree with the grey wood stain. Allow the stain to set before you move on to decorating the wooden Christmas tree.

Glue Pinecones

Hot glue pine cones and bows onto the tree, as desired, or in my case, as the kids desired. They really got a kick out of decorating our tree and wanted to go all-out, but I held them off as I wasn’t quite ready to put every one of Christmas tree decorations on a porch sign that’ll sit outside.

Completed wooden Christmas Tree

I thought we were done once we had the bow and the pinecones glued on, but one of my kids said wait it’s not done. They then ran inside and didn’t come back for a few minutes but when he did he had a handfull of Christmas lights to add on. So I decided to appease him and let him put them on. I think it turned out great.

DIY Wooden Christmas Tree With Lights

One of the things I like best about this project is the fact that the kids CAN get involved. Yeah, sure the paint is messy with little kids, but how else are they going to learn how to paint? And although they might not be strong enough to work the trigger on the hot glue gun–and I certainly don’t want them getting burned, they can tell me where to put the glue and then they can put the pine cones and bow on top.

Wood Christmas Tree

This is a great Christmas craft project that the kids and myself will be proud to put on the porch every year. If you loved this idea, but you’re not quite ready to break out the saw just yet, be sure to pin this to your favorite DIY Holiday Decorations board on Pinterest so you can find it again.

Yield: 1

Wooden Christmas Tree

Eay DIY Wood Christmas Tree Completed

Make an Adorable Wooden Christmas tree with this step by step tutorial.

Prep Time 5 minutes
Active Time 30 minutes
Additional Time 30 minutes
Total Time 1 hour 5 minutes
Difficulty Easy
Estimated Cost $10.00

Materials

Instructions

  1. Cut off one length of wood at 42-inches. 
  2. Cut out each of the following lengths (approximately) to create the tree shape, using a 15-degree angle cut one each end to create a trapezoid shape out of each board: 30-inches, 27-inches, 24-inches, 21-inches, 15-inches, 13-inches, 9-inches, 7-inches, 4-inches
  3. On a flat space, line the fence panels up how you want them to stand on your porch. Meaning, line up the centers and make your tree shape.
  4. Hot glue the long centerpiece from step 1 onto the back of the fence panels lined up to make the tree shape. This will hold the Christmas tree together.
  5. Sand the entire shape, taking care to round all the corners and edges.
  6. Paint the entire tree white.
  7. Allow the paint to dry fully.
  8. Dry brush the entire tree with the grey wood stain.
  9. Allow the stain to dry.
  10. Hot glue pine cones and bow onto the tree, as desired.
  11. Enjoy your beautiful Wooden Christmas Tree!

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