One of my favorite gifts that I made this year I of course failed to take a nice picture of. Just my luck.
I made my godfather a decoration of trees and a graphic design print with lyrics from his favorite song, In the Bleak Midwinter.
The print is simple and has the first verse of the song. I wanted to create a decoration to sit beside it, so I used pallet wood to create a tree scene.
First, I cut out pallet pieces using a jigsaw. I didn’t care for the lines to be perfect, so you’ll see that the trees aren’t all straight or the same size. Imperfection is the name of the game.
Once my trees were cut out, I sanded them down and laid them out in a way I thought looked pleasing.
I pulled a piece of scrap wood from my stash and cut it down to size. I wanted just enough behind the trees to help the whole decoration stand on its own.
Next, I stained the trees. I used a darker brown stain and a light green stain, choosing to leave the tree in the middle untouched.
Once the stain dried, I screwed the piece of scrap wood into the trees so they would be permanently affixed together.
Last, I used a small piece of scrap wood to create a star — I wasn’t able to cut a star out of wood, but instead stained an itty bitty piece of wood yellow and used a wood burning tool to add a star. I added this to the center tree only.
Ta da!
Like I said — not a good picture. It really doesn’t do this decoration justice. My godfather loved his framed graphic art and the accompanying tree decoration. I almost didn’t want to give the trees away!
A Smith of All Trades 