Scrap Wood Rustic Christmas Tree

OK, OK. It’s official that I am a Christmas procrastinator. It is currently eight days until Christmas and I still have not completed my Christmas shopping nor all the Christmas projects I had planned. That said, I was able to crank out this scrap wood rustic Christmas tree in just an hour or two last weekend. And it is the perfect addition to my holiday decor but would also make a great handmade holiday gift. Read on to learn how to make your own. Time may be short but you could definitely still crank this out!

Project Inspiration

If you follow my Instagram account (https://www.instagram.com/rockycanyonrustic/), last week you would’ve seen a poll asking for input on which last minute scrap wood project I should try to sneak in before the holidays. By overwhelming majority, the rustic tree won!

Getting Started

I sorted through the scrap wood I had on hand to plan out how I would make my own version. Oddly, I didn’t have a lot of scrap wood lying around. So I pieced together a few different sizes of wood starting with the smallest at the top and working down to the largest. You can really use anything that you might have available and still make this project work!

The wood was then arranged in a herringbone pattern. If you don’t know what that is, basically it’s putting the end of one piece of wood up against the side of another piece and then alternating back-and-forth. This technique is great for this project because it creates the exact angles you need for the tree without having to make any angled cuts. Pretty cool!  Plus I just love the pattern. After my wood was arranged and I had the size I was looking for, a few pieces needed to be trimmed down. The bottom pieces were cut straight across so that the tree would have a flat/straight bottom. These were assembled using wood glue and pocket holes as seen above.

A 2 x 4 was cut down to make the tree stand. I really didn’t do any measuring for this project, just eyeballed it to get the size that I was looking for. The 4 feet for the bottom of the stand were, however, cut into 6 inch equal pieces.

Oddly, attaching the feet to the base was probably the hardest part of this project. I decided I would use pocket holes and attach from the bottom.  Unfortunately I couldn’t get any of my clamps to really hold these in place the way that I wanted, so I had to hold them together by hand. It’s definitely not perfect but luckily with the 4 feet it is still pretty stable. 

Finishing

You can literally finish this project in any way that you want. You could leave the wood raw, stain it a solid color, or  paint it to be a bright green Christmas tree with decorations and ornaments!

I, however, wanted to keep mine pretty rustic looking and unfortunately a couple of my pieces of scrap wood were pre-primed boards which took the raw/stained versions off the table. That said, I started by staining the entire piece with Varathane briar smoke stain. Of course the primed pieces didn’t take the stain quite as well as the raw wood, but it did add some brown to those pieces which worked for what I needed.

After the stain was dry I did one coat of white paint over top on the tree only. After letting that dry, a little bit of green paint was dry brushed over top the white. Again, you could stop at any point if you like the way it looks just being white. I just thought it might be fun to add a tiny pop of color.

Again, because I wanted this to look rustic I decided once it was all done that I would go over it with my palm sander. This worked perfectly and  took off paint in just the right places to make it look more worn, vintage, and rustic. The stand  was then attached to the Christmas tree from the back using 2 inch spax screws.

Final Product

And you are done! Super easy project. Completely free if you are using scraps that you have on hand like I was. And again, a great addition to any holiday home decor or the perfect present for your craft loving family or friends! This guy may be getting a scrap wood rustic Christmas tree friend next year. I think he looks lonely. 

Happy Holidays!