Wooden christmas decorations ... ...

Been a while since I last posted, been busy making a dolls house and some furniture for it, for my daughter as part of her Christmas present.

Anyway I'll post about the dolls house soon, but for now have a look at these simply to make wooden Christmas decorations, they could also be made in thick card as well.

Stars -

Very festive :-)

After making the dolls house I had a load of scrap bits of wood lying about so I made some decorations to try and use some of it up, it's only thin plywood (4mm) so it's pretty easy to cut out by hand, although having a scroll saw or coping saw helps.

This wood make a great project for kids to try, with younger kids you might need to do the cutting for them, but they could do the painting and decorating themselves.

Basically what you do is cut out 2 identical shapes, I've done stars (above) to hang in our tree and I also did a Christmas tree for the mantle piece.

Then what you need to do is cut out a groove halfway down 1 piece and then on the other piece cut another groove, again halfway down, but in the opposite end to the first.

Like this  - 

I actually went a little over halfway.

Then all you do is slide the 2 bits together, and if you paint them before you put them together should be able to flat pack them when it's time to put Christmas back in it's box.

Assembled - 

1 easy to make 3d look Christmas tree.

 Now all that's left is to decorate it, you can use paints, or cover them in paper, or leave them plain, it's up to you, and if you let the kids at it you'll end up with all sorts of interesting designs.

I spray painted the stars silver, and the tree was painted in a metallic green acrylic paint, then I've added (badly) some detail in glitter glue.

The finished articles - 

In my defence I was in a hurry ;-)

And that's it, simple and quick, and they look pretty good, and pack away flat, you can use any shape you feel like, so if you have some scraps of thin wood about, or some thick card here's a good use for it.

Thanks for reading.

Spinning christmas tree ornament ... ...

Just a short post on another of our christmas creations, at this rate we will have more or less refitted the tree in handmade decorations.

Here it is.

My wife had mentioned making tree decorations like the one above out of some foam sheet we have, but after looking at the thickness of the foam we decided it wouldn't work very well.

So this afternoon I set about making one out of wood.

They are simple enough to make, you need a few tools though, mainly a saw of some kind (a small hacksaw, or coping saw will do) and a thin drill bit and drill (a 2mm drill bit) all you have to do is mark out your shape on some wood (I used a scrap piece of 10mm tongue and grove) I've chosen a tree shape, but you could do a snowman, or a circular decoration, you could also use a star shape and instead of slicing it like I have you could cut a series of stars out of the main one, so that they all spin inside each other (I'll most likely write a post about it at some point)

Once you have marked your shape out you need to divide it into equal sections, I made my sections about 10mm (1cm) thick, then mark the centre of your shape, this makes it easier to align the holes you will drill through each section.

A closer up picture - 

It's not really wonky, it's the camera angle ;-)

Use the saw to slice up your shape, try and keep the pieces in the order your saw them (although with a simple shape it's easy to figure out where the bits go) then take each piece and drill a hole in the middle (use the centre line you made as a guide) do this for all the parts, if you use wood you may want to give each part a sand after you've cut and drilled them for a smoother look.

Then the fun bit, you can use thin gauge wire,string,wool or cotton thread for this part, you'll need some small beads or something to put between each section as well.

I used a larger bead at the bottom of the tree, but one the same size as the others would do, you could also use a small bell for extra jingle. Thread your chosen material through each part, you can use the first bead/bell to tie the string or wire to, so it doesn't all slide off.

After each section add a bead, then another section, then a bead and so on, until you get to the top, at this point you can either use the last section, or use a large bead, or bell or maybe if you have some star shaped beads you could use them, that's the beauty of crafts, you can do what ever you feel like, it's about imagination. Then just leave a loop to hang it on the tree with.

Here it is again, in case you missed it at the start of the post ;-)

It doesn't take long to do, and you can get the kids involved, although you may want to do the sawing or cutting, then you can decorate them however you want, I've used some silver spray and a little glitter spray, you can use glue and glitter or anything else you have.

You don't need to use wood either, some thick cardboard would work just as well, and if you don't have a saw this may be a better option, it should work in the same way.

And there you have it, a spinning christmas tree decoration.

Thanks for reading.