Seasonal

I am just a little bit obsessed with nativities.

Okay, a lot.

I mean, they are the best reminder of what Christmas is all about.

So, when I saw that my friend Samantha over at Little Bits of Home made her own DIY nativity – I just had to share it!

You see, we are in the midst of our Deck the Home Blog Hop. It’s a 5-week series of amazing DIY projects, brought to you by a group of talented bloggers. Each week has a theme – the first was door decor, and this week is wood projects.

There were so many awesome wood projects, but this sweet nativity scene left in me awe.

Samantha found peg people at the craft store and hand-painted them, turning the wooden figures it into this blessed little scene.

From the wood chip hay to the creative manger to perfectly painted people, this nativity will just blow you away. Isn’t it absolutely incredible?!

Be sure to hop on over to Little Bits of Home to check out all of the details on how Samantha made this DIY nativity 

How did I not even know that peg people were a thing?! They’re on my list for my next trip to the craft store 🙂

A little bit more about Samantha, she shares her DIY adventures on her blog Little Bits of Home. From room makeovers to organization to crafts, she has some incredible projects.

What’s Next?

From wood mantels to holiday signs to homemade tree stands, this group of bloggers had amazing DIYs this week. Be sure to check back on Friday for a round-up of my favorite DIY wood projects for the holidays.

And, as an added bonus, next week’s theme is outdoor holiday decor.

We have an awesome post coming up – and it was all my hubby’s idea and it involves Santa 🙂

I’m really loving sharing all these awesome holiday projects with you in November! It makes me feel super organized for the coming season. I hope it’s helping you too!

I totally am in love with Christmas.

I’m known to decorate in November, I have two full-size Christmas trees, and I have decorations everywhere – kitchen, bathrooms, kids rooms, you name it. 🙂

This year, we’ve been making a bunch of our own Christmas decor, and I don’t know why we haven’t tried this sooner!

Last week, we made a wooden star door hanger.

And, this week I’m so excited to share with you this tabletop buffalo check Christmas tree.

Wondering why of all of these Christmas projects?

Because we are collaborating with dozens of other bloggers in the Deck the Home Holiday Blog Hop, bringing you FIVE WEEKS of amazing holiday projects.

After you check out the buffalo check (see what I did there?!), scroll down to see all of the other projects in the Deck the Home hop this week!

The theme is wooden projects.

How to Make a Tabletop Christmas Tree

The tabletop Christmas tree is made out of plywood, and I painted on the buffalo check print. Pretty cool, right?! Below are the easy instructions so you can make your own wooden Christmas tree.

How to Make the Wooden Tree

To start, I sketched out an outline of a tree on some paper. Once I was happy with the design, I cut it out with some scissors and traced the cutout on some plywood.

Then I used my scroll saw and carefully cut out two trees from the plywood. (Seriously, if you love DIY, put a scroll saw on your Christmas list 🙂 )

Notice the center lines I made on the cutouts with my pencil. The shaded areas were marked for me to cut out so that the two trees could intersect with each other.

Here are the trees with the intersection slots cut out.

You can use our free template to do the same 🙂

How to Make the Wooden Star Topper

Next, I made the star topper using the same intersection method as the tree.  I cut out two stars and cut a notch in the middle to allow them to join.

How to Make the Base of the Tree

For the base of the tree, I just layered three circular plywood cutouts, which were to be glued together.  

The largest cutout (the lowest one) had a smaller circle cut out in the middle (making a ring shape). This extra cutout was to hide some batteries for an LED light string.

I did take some extra time to cut out a tree trunk (looks like an upside down stool), but opted not to use it in the finished tree.

Now that all three elements were completed (base, tree and star), it was time for everything to be painted.

Here is the unfinished constructed wooden tabletop Christmas tree.

How to Paint Buffalo Check on Wood

To paint the wooden tabletop Christmas tree, I decided on a green buffalo check pattern. I absolutely LOVE plaid and I also love a challenge. The best part of this was you basically only needed two things – paint and painter’s tape.

Video Tutorial

Check out the video below to see how I painted the buffalo check pattern.

Painting the Buffalo Check Pattern

First, I highly highly recommend that you do at LEAST one practice piece before you start your real piece. Second, you’ll need 4 different paint colors. You’ll use your main color (green), you’ll use black, and then you’ll mix in-between shades.

Mixing your Paint

So first, you’ll want to mix your paint. I used four small cups and put green paint in one and black in another. Those two paint colors would be used as is.

You’ll take the remaining two cups and put your base color (green) in. Then you’ll add a little bit of black to each. Basically you want two shades in-between your base color and black. So, I went from green to dark green to very dark green to black.

You definitely want to make sure that you test the shades on your surface to make sure they look different enough.

First Coat for Painting Buffalo Check

Next, you paint your entire piece your base color. So, I painted my tree green. I used a hair dryer to speed up the drying process because well, I didn’t have all day 🙂

Second Coat for Painting Buffalo Check

After your base coat is dry, you will take your painter’s tape and start making vertical stripes with it. There’s an easy way to do this, and that’s by using a piece of painter’s tape as your spacer.

So, you’ll take a strip of tape and place it on the edge of the tree going left-t0-right. You’ll push this piece down.

Then, you’ll put another piece of tape right next to this one. Don’t press this down – this is your spacer.

You’ll take a third piece of tape and place that down. Push that one down.

Next, remove the second piece – the spacer – and place that on the other side of the third piece, without pushing it down.

You’ll take a fourth piece and push that one down.

Remove the spacer piece before to use on the other side. Continue this way – using the spacer piece as your guide until you reach the end.

Once you have your tape in place, take your second color (dark green) and paint the areas not covered by tape.

When painting, use a brush and DAB on the paint. Do not use brush strokes because the brush hairs will get under the tape. So, just lightly dab on the paint until you have full coverage.

You can remove the tape – and let it dry without the tape.

Third Coat for Painting Buffalo Check

This time you are going to do horizontal stripes.

Start at the top of the Christmas tree and lay down one piece of tape. This time the first piece will be your spacer.

So after you lay down the second piece of tape (pushing this one down), remove the first one. Continue to use the first piece as your spacer.

Once the tape is down, use your third color (very dark green) and dab the paint on. This will feel kind of weird – because it seems like you are painting over all your hard work. However, keep going and you will get the results you want.

Do NOT remove the tape this time. Let it dry with the tape on. The last coat of paint will go on over this tape.

Fourth Coat for Painting Buffalo Check

Yay – last coat!

This is part is a little tricky. You are going to put down vertical stripes again – but you have to line them up perfectly with how you laid down the first round of tape.

That’s why we used the spacer piece.

So if you’re perfectly laying the spacer piece down both times, you’ll have no problem.

However, I recommend using a very bright light. If you aren’t working under a very bright light, have someone hold their phone up with the flashlight on – so you can see the lines through your paint. This way, you will see if you are laying the tape down right.

So, just as we did before, lay down the first piece of vertical tape. Push that one down.

Put the spacer down as the second piece.

Lay down your third piece of tape. Push that one down and remove the spacer before.

As you are working, try to make sure you are accurately laying the pieces down, just as you did before.

Last, peel off all of the tape (you don’t have to wait for it to be dry) and you’ll be amazed with the beautiful buffalo check pattern!

Painting the Star & Stand

You’ll also want to give your star and stand a coat of paint. I used regular acrylic colors and then some glittery gold metallic paint on top.

Here’s the completed star:

Gluing all the pieces together

Once all the pieces have been painted, I applied some wood glue and assembled everything together.  Here is the final result!

I love to tell you how much I spend on each of these crafts! This is another ZERO dollar project.

Scrap plywood, painters tape from the garage, and acrylic paint from the craft room! I haven’t taken a trip to the hardware or craft store at all during the Deck the Home Blog Hop. 🙂

So if you have these materials too, what are ya waiting for?! Make your own buffalo check 3D FREE tree 🙂

And if you have a string of lights laying around like we do (from a robot scarecrow we made last year), you can even light your tree up.

More Holiday Inspiration

It’s the second week of our Deck the Home Blog Hop, where we are collaborating with 25 talented DIY bloggers! Check out all of their holiday DIY projects or see my favorite holiday wood DIYs.

 

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Well, my friends, the holiday season is upon us.

And if you are anything like me, you’re probably loving every second of wandering the holiday aisles at Target and Home Goods.

Seriously, sometimes I want to buy their entire Christmas section.

But you know what’s even better than spending a ton of money on gorgeous Christmas decor?

Making it yourself for a fraction of the cost!

Today, I’m sharing over 20 insanely creative DIY Christmas “wreaths” that are so simple to make.

A few of these Christmas wreaths cost nothing to make, a few of them only took 20 minutes to make, and even more of them are so creative that you wouldn’t see anything like it in the stores.

These creative wreaths fall into 5 categories – wreaths made from hoops, wreaths made from cool stuff, wreaths that are totally nontraditional, wreaths made from fresh greenery, wreaths made from wood, and wreaths that are beautifully classic.

Easy Hoop Door Decor

First up, we have wreaths that are all made from hoops. From rustic simplicity to boho chic, these wreaths all the basis of a simple hoop design.

Most of these wreaths took 30 minutes or less to make. In clockwise order (pictured above), we have:

Simple, Rustic Wreath from Patti at Renovating Mapleson Manor

Easy Boho Wreath from Jessica at Jessica Lehman Interior Design

Embroidery Hoop Ornament Wreath  from Laura at Mom Envy

Simple Hoop Wreath from Megan at Two Feet First

Totally Unique Holiday Door Decor

Next up is my favorite category – holiday wreaths made from unique things!

I love the creativity in all of these wreaths – from using old sweaters to coffee filters, these holiday wreaths are truly one-of-a-kind beautiful.

In clockwise order (pic above), we have:

Simple Cozy Christmas Wreath from Carmen at Gross to Grandiose

Christmas Coffee Filter Wreath from Sarah at Creative Ramblings

Thrift Store Finds Christmas Wreath from Brooke at Cribbs Style

String Art & Christmas Things Wreath from Christine at My Kitchen My Craft

DIY Wood Door Decor

Did you know that you can make some really creative and fun wreaths from wood?

From the star we made to the pretty signs above (one is made from fence posts!), you don’t want to miss these.

In clockwise order (pic above):

Simple Christmas Star that we made 🙂

Wood Planked Wreath from Kristen and Vicki at Timeless Creations

Wooden Christmas Door Tags from Thea at That Sweet Tea Life

Non-traditional DIY Wreaths

Ahh another one of my favorite categories. You guys, these wreaths are amazing! They are not traditional Christmas wreaths which is what makes them so darn creative!

From a snow scene to gift tags to cuddly yarn wreaths, you will love these!

In clockwise order (pictured above):

Simple Christmas Door Basket from Samantha at Little Bits of Home

Monogram Door Hanger from Toni at Girl, Just DIY

Snow Scene Hanging Basket from Amy at 1905 Farmhouse

Easy DIY Yarn Wreath from Lidia at Design Inside the Box

Gift Tag Door Decor from Betsy at Happily Ever After, Etc

Fresh Greenery Holiday Wreaths

It wouldn’t be Christmas without fresh greenery! Here are three wreaths that feature fresh greens – some are even from the yard.

They turned out so pretty, right?!

Going clockwise (pic above):

Fresh Clippings Christmas Wreath from Stephanie at Gathered In The Kitchen

DIY Garden Clipping Door Wreath from Casey at House by the Bay Design

Rustic Frame Christmas Wreath from Rebecca at Zucchini Sisters

Traditional Holiday DIY Wreaths

Last, but not least, we have some beautiful classic wreaths.

From burlap ribbon to beach-themed to floral Christmas garland, these wreaths are simple and gorgeous.

In clockwise (pic above) order:

Holiday Pinecone Wreath from Amy at Home, Health, and Heart

DIY Burlap Ribbon Wreath from Kenya at Kenya Rae

Rustic Evergreen Wreath from Maureen at Red Cottage Chronicles

DIY Moss Christmas Wreath from Meegan at What Meegan Makes

Coastal Christmas Wreath from Eileen at Sand Dollar Lane

Farmhouse Christmas Wreath from Jaclyn at The Dotted Nest

How inspiring are all of those DIY wreaths?! So many of them are simple to make and take a short amount of time.

Definitely put some time aside this holiday season to make your unique door decor. It’s lots of fun, saves money, and you get to create something you’ll love!

There’s something about Christmas that makes me so happy.

I love coming down the stairs on a December morning, seeing the room warmly lit with the glow from the Christmas tree. I haven’t heard a Christmas carol that I didn’t like, and don’t even get me started on those Hallmark Christmas movies. 🙂

Needless to say, Christmas is my favorite.

So for this holiday season, I have something really special for you. I am collaborating with 26 other DIY and home bloggers to bring you {drum roll please} the Deck the Home Blog Hop.

Deck the Home Blog Hop is a series of amazing Christmas DIY and home projects that we will be posting every Monday morning from now until the first week of December, giving you plenty of time to peruse the projects and make some of them yourselves!

Each week has a theme – this week’s theme is Door Decor.

So, all 27 DIY bloggers have posted Christmas DIY door decor projects to their blog today! How cool is that?!

I’ll be sharing mine with you below, and I’ll be featuring one special blogger’s door decor project on Wednesday. As an added bonus, on Friday, I’ll be posting a little roundup of my favorites 🙂

And, below my project tutorial, there is a link-up of all of the Deck the Home Door Decor projects from the week.

Without further ado, here is my door decor project which will show you how to make a simple wooden Christmas star for your door. This project cost a whoopin’ zero bucks because they were all items I collected from around our workshop and craft room.

How to Make a Simple Wooden Christmas Star

The below instructions will show you how to make this easy holiday star.

Materials for the Wooden Star

The star itself is made just with ribbon, plywood, and greens. However, I did stain and wax the star, too. Check out the materials below.

• Scrap plywood
• Ribbon
• Greens – Read below on how I got these 🙂
• Wood Stain – I made my own!
• Wax – We used Daddy Van’s Beewax, provided to us by Old Fashioned Milk Paint.

Optional – Jingle Bells or other fun accessories.

Tools Needed for the Wooden Star

• Scroll saw (jig saw or even a handsaw will work too)
• Orbital sander (or you can just sand by hand)
• Hanging hardware

Draw out the Star

The first thing I did was grab a piece of scrap plywood from the garage, and I drew out a star. I didn’t want a perfect star, but one that had character – so I intentionally exaggerated some of the points.

Cut out the Star

Once I was happy with it, I used my scroll saw to cut it out.

If you haven’t used a scroll saw yet, ohmygosh, you are missing out! It’s super cool and super easy to use. It’s kind of like a sewing machine, but with a little blade instead. The cuts take a little practice, but it’s definitely a low-pressure tool.

After I cut it out, I rounded over the edges with a light sanding from my orbital sander. This made the star splinter free and easy to handle.

Stain & Seal the Star

Next, I stained the star with a homemade stain mix. I love making my own stain, and you won’t believe the materials I used. 🙂

After staining and letting it dry a while, I sealed it with beeswax that Old Fashioned Milk Paint provided when we did our mudroom makeover. I like to use all natural ingredients, so you won’t find many chemicals here.

Decorate the Star

Now, for my second favorite part (first favorite part was the scroll saw). I took out my Christmas ribbon collection and starting looking for the perfect one.

I’ve bought all of my Christmas ribbon from Michael’s 70% off last year, during the Black Friday sales. I didn’t have any projects in mind, but rather I gravitated toward the ribbon I loved and saved them for the rainy day 🙂 That’s one of the best ways to save money with DIYs and it saves trips to the store later on.

After I chose my ribbon, I started looking for greenery. I didn’t have any of my Christmas decorations out yet, and although they are labeled and stored in a pretty easy spot, I only had 10 minutes before I had to start to dinner. So I grabbed a Christmas wreath that was easier to reach and clipped a few pieces of greenery from the back.

Not yet happy with the results, a tree outside grabbed my eye, and next thing I know, I was clipping off some greens.

So there you have it, a mix of real and artificial greenery, tied with a thrifty yet gorgeous ribbon.

I was so pleased with the results and I still had a few minutes to spare before starting dinner. 🙂

Adding the Hanging Hardware

I keep a few frame hanging kits in the garage for hanging all types of things on the wall.  They are very useful to have handy.  I opted to use two mini eyehole screws and frame hanging wire.

I was pretty pleased with how the star turned out. Not only did I not spend a dime, but now I had a homemade Christmas star that I love to add to my holiday collection.

It’s fun when you find decor that you love in the store, but it’s a pretty amazing feeling when you made it yourself.

More Holiday Decor for the Home

So, my friends, I encourage you to make something yourselves this holiday season! And, we are giving you tons of ideas with our Deck the Home Blog Hop.

Check out my top favorite door decor projects in this roundup, or see all of the Deck the Home DIY projects. 

Check back on Wednesday – I’ll be featuring one of my favorites 🙂