When Tom rebuilt his parents' side porch and installed the wheelchair lift in July, I scurried around his work area picking up little bitty pieces of wood in various sizes. Stuff that Tom wanted to sweep up and throw away. I stuck the pieces in a Ziploc bag and put it in a drawer when I got home. This week I pulled the bag out to make my ornament.
You know I'm no stranger to offbeat trees. Remember the book tree? And the wall tree?
I didn't sand any of the pieces, I just drilled a hole in the centre of each one. I wanted it to look rough and rustic - imperfect, like a real tree. I also used a hammer and chisel to resize a few pieces since some were nearly the same length and I needed them to be graduated sizes.
I broke out my craft paint and gave the "branches" two coats of green (leaf green with a little black mixed in) while the "trunk" got two coats of brown.
Once they had dried, I strung the pieces together with twine. To make it easier to thread the pieces, wrap a piece of scotch tape around the end of the twine, sort of like a shoelace. I tied a knot between each wooden piece, to give it a bit of lift and to show off individual branches.
Finally, I added a pearl bead for a tree topper and fashioned a loop so that it could be hung. Start to finish, it took less than an hour to put together.
It's exactly what I was going for. I like to imagine it's something you might find at Ikea (though they'd probably sand theirs a bit). Besides being an ornament, I think it'd make a sweet little decoration on a gift as well. I'm keeping this one though - I like it too much to give away.
If you'd like to see some other ornaments I've made, check them out here and here.
