I have the honor and privilege to be invited as a guest designer for Decorate to Celebrate today! I love this challenge blog and it is full of such amazing inspirations. To be a part of the inspiration team is such a “pie al a mode” moment for me. Thank you Amy and Decorate to Celebrate for this wonderful opportunity!
The challenge is to make something in the scope of home, party or table decor that revolves around celebrating the Holidays, using paper crafting (Hanukkah, Christmas, New Years, etc.). I am a total Christmas fanatic and have been wanting to start decorating my house since before Thanksgiving, but thankfully crafting Holiday cheer during that time staved off my need and allowed Mr. Tom Turkey to shine instead. Be sure to head over to Decorate to Celebrate and get see the other amazing creative ideas and LINK up your great Holiday project!
What I decided to make is an inspiration from the pages of the Holiday Crate and Barrel catalog I saw this idea last year and again this year and just had to tackle it. It can be used as a center piece for a holiday table or just a fantastic decor added to an end table or sofa table. Thankfully, the hubs has an elaborate workshop in the garage so I have access to to pull this off – under the watchful and teachable eyes of course. I think he is getting nervous that I may be expanding my crafting space into his workshop soon. 🙂
How To:
I started with going to Home Depot and gathering up two sticks of 1/2 inch trim and 1/4 inch dowels (in the baseboard and crown molding department). After doing a quick and dirty calculation I came up with the sizes I wanted and cut the 1/2 trim down to the sizes I needed.
Large Tree:
- Long sticks: (roughly) 17 1/4 inches,
- Short stick 11 1/4 inches,
- Tree base cut down from a 3/4 inch thick block to 6 x 2.5 inches
Small Tree:
- Long sticks : 12 3/4 inches x 8 3/4 inches
- Tree base cut down from a 3/4 thick block to 4.5 x 2.5 inches
Once all pieces were cut down, I sanded down the rough edges and glued together with wood glue using clamps on each corner of the trees so they would set firmly and dry overnight.
Once dried, I released the clamps and sanded down any glue that may have leaked out due to the pressure of the clamps. I mixed up some epoxy and with the help of the hubs cut down the dowels to fit in the cavity of the trees and quickly and I do mean quickly adhered the dowels to the tree. BOY DOES THAT EPOXY DRY FAST!
After that, I wrapped a piece of wire around the peak and hung from a tree branch so I could paint them. I used Rust-Olemum Textured Metallic spray paint and painted it with about 4 coats (I should have had a layer of primer first; live and learn). Regardless,I loved the sparkle this paint gives off.
In between coats, I fired up my Silhouette and ordered two different 3-D ornaments for .99 each. Using Bo Bunny’s North Pole designer paper (needs to be two sided designer paper), I cut out various sized ornaments. These are a little tricky to put together- need more patience than talent :-). But once I got the hang of it, the assembly went faster. These don’t need any adhesive and I found a tutorial on putting together a round 3-D paper craft from the designer of these ornaments that I was able to crossover for making these. Once they were assembled, I added ornament hooks and cut them down to size using wire cutters.
Note: You can use glass or plastic ornaments as well.
Ornament Cuts:
Ball Ornaments
- Large : 6.25 x 6.0
- Medium: 5.22 x 5.0
- Small: 4.20 x 4.0
Long Skinny Ornaments
- Large: 6.0 x 4.91
- Small: 4.77 x 3.85
This project was very fun to make and it was a great way to incorporate some creative time with the hubs as well. I am thankful he likes to guide me in learning new things, even if it may mean he may be woken out of a dead sleep hearing his chop saw or scroll saw hard at work in the middle of the night (that is when most of my crafting gets done). Also this project cost about $20 to make and you can’t beat that!
Thanks for sharing a piece of ” you can make what you want on a dime” pie with me! And be sure to head on over to Decorate to Celebrate by clicking HERE to join the party!
Linking Up To:
- Craft-O-Maniac
- Everyday is an Occasion – Sunday Fundays
- Paper Issues
- I Gotta Create – Wildly Orginal Link Party #28
- Paper Playtime Challenge #89-Anything Goes
- Go Fish Challenge #29-Home Decor
- My Sheri Crafts Challenge #99-Tis the Season
- DL.ART Thankful Thursday- December Holidays
A Piece of Life's Pie 
Awesome Christmas decoration!! Thank you for joining us at Decorate To Celebrate! Have a great evening!!
WOWZERS….this is AMAZING and so festive!!! I love all the ornaments and the stand is so awesome! FUN decoration-totally rocked this!
Sherrie K
http://sherriescraps.blogspot.com
WOW, what a fabulous project!! I absolutely love it!! The ornaments are gorgeous and the stands are so awesome!! I’m so happy to have you join us at DTC…you did an amazing job!!
Oh My Arin – these are amazing. Love the wooden trees and the ornaments are stunning:-) Have a great day.
Wow….now that’s a GREAT project! I didn’t realize you made them all from wood. Love the the colors. I may need to order a few of these ornaments to use on my new Cameooooo! Holly 🙂
This is super, You did a great job on the trees they really look modern and like metal. I really like how you did the ornaments.
Thank you for joining my DL.ART Thankful Thursday challenge.
DIANA L.
http://dianamlarson.blogspot.com
Oh my! Gorgeous project and perfect of the season!! Great job and thanks for playing at the Go Fish Challenge!!
What a labor of love! I just love the modernistic design! The ornaments are just perfectly placed on those precious trees! I just love, love, love this!
Chris
So, it’s looking like you and that Cameo sure are getting to be fast friends!!!! I cannot tell you how much I absolutely LOVE this. Putting it on the list for next year, for sure!!! I love the silver and the ornaments look fabulous. (Buying them right now while there’s a sale, thanks for the links!!!) Cracks me up what you said about husb waking up to the power tools!!!
Wow Arin! This is awesome! Love the mix of paper crafting and woodworking! That silver paint looks great with the colors of the ornaments! And the ornaments are gorgeous! This is a wonderful project!!!! Such a beautiful design!
This is really beautiful! I will have to go over and get these! Thanks for sharing!
Susie
Fabulous Arin! Way to go with the woodworking! The ornaments are just absolutely adorbable! Thanks for linking up to Every Day is an Occasion! Happy Friday! Smiles, Jill
Arin, it is such a pleasure to have you as a Guest Designer for DTC!! Even though I got to sneak peek these early, my jaw still dropped while reading your post — What a labor of love for these FANTASTIC ornament trees — I hope you get to tell every single Christmas visitor every detail of how you made them!! 🙂 They truly are stunning and spectacular, and YOU are the ala mode today, my friend!!
Thanks so much for decorating your celebrations and sharing your DT talent at the Decorate To Celebrate! Challenge Blog!
BIG HUGS,
Amy 🙂 at http://www.lovetocrop.com
and Decorate To Celebrate!
Aww! This is so awesome it’s my pleasure to shine the spotlight on this project STAR!
Thanks so much for linking up at I Gotta Create! ❤ Christina
What a fun way to spend some one on one time. This is a very pretty project. TFS
Visiting from DTC and these are gorgeous!
Great table decoration! I love the pattern papers you chose for the ornaments. This is definitely a project I’ll keep in mind for future decorating!!
These are so cute! I pinned them for next year!