Today I’m going back to my roots. When I’d grab a handful of rusty junk and come up with something cool! Which led me to steampunk industrial wood Christmas trees.
Are they a thing?! They are now! Who knew, huh?
Creating with rusty gears isn’t new to me. My all-time fav post is THIS rusty gear candle votive! But after staring at the gears for awhile, I felt they’d make pretty epic Christmas tree bases… now how to make it work?
I didn’t have to travel far. I had a few things on hand that look like they’d work, and with a quick trip to the local hardware, I think they turned out super cool, and were so easy to make! Here’s how:
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Steampunk industrial wood Christmas trees
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Supplies I used:
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Rusty gears (I landed mine from a salvage welding yard)
3/8″ drill bit outfitted to a cordless drill
Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint in Typewriter
Find a local MMSMP retailer HERE
Things to decorate with: washers, small chains, etc.
I also really like using ½” black Phillips Truss screws like THESE
You could also decorate the trees with stencils from HERE
How-to:
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Building the Christmas trees
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1. Cut a fence plank with a miter saw at an angle of choice. Flip the board over, and do it again until a triangle results. Keep cutting until you have all the tree tops desired.
My reclaimed fence wood was about 6″ wide.
2. Paint if desired.
I painted mine in Miss Mustard Seed’s Milk Paint in Typewriter and didn’t top coat, because I wanted them to appear chalky and rustic, perfect for this project!
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About Milk Paint:
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Milk paint comes in powder form that is very easily mixed with water.
Learn how to mix milk paint from the videos in THESE POSTS.
3. Gather up some rusty gears.
Yum! Love that matte black against that rust!
(the blocks on the right were used for THIS tree project)
4. Cut a wood closet dowel into slices about 1.5″ deep.
5. Cut a 3/8 wood dowel approx 2″ long.
6. Drill a 3/8 hole under each tree and into each dowel.
7. Connect the tree to the base using the small dowel. Paint trunk and base also in Typewriter as well.
So easy! And now that the trees are built, let’s decorate them!
Decorating the trees
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Desiring to work with black, rust and metal, I gathered a few things from my junk stash to decorate the trees with.
Have you seen my revamped super cool General Store junk stash HERE? It’s a must visit!
Installing tips:
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- I really like using ½” black Phillips Truss screws like THESE.
- And always pre-drill holes before installing screws, or you risk splitting the wood.
To install a small chain, I pinned it in place, then replaced the pins with washers underneath and screws on top.
Another tree wears layered washers and screws.
Yet another displays vintage locker tags.
Aren’t they the coolest?! You can’t do these wrong. Just decorate with what you have and now you want them to look.
Now let’s have fun staging them!
The finished Industrial wood Christmas trees!
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Each tree was inserted into a rusty gear base, then grouped and layered until I liked what I saw.
A little faux snow was thrown in to winter things up.
A candle even joined the industrial tree party!
Hmmm… how about with some evergreen branches? Yeah, that’s cute too!
HERE are some faux evergreen branches!
And without a candle, they are just a group of stylin’ steam punk industrial Christmas trees doing their own thing.
Oh! But what if you layered a washer to raise up the candle on a gear? I like that too!
In all honesty, these little Industrial wood Christmas trees can do no wrong. They are one stylin’ group!
How would you decorate yours up?
Other scrap wood trees you may enjoy:
Scrap wood Christmas trees in presents
String wrapped trees with junk bases
Visit many other DIY Christmas tree ideas HERE
Check out ALL my rustic Christmas decorating projects HERE
Love. Love. Love. these trees. From the size, the chalk black paint, the round metal pieces from your stash and the way you left a little bit of the screw not screwed in the whole way and looped the chain on to resemble garland. Now, I am going to pay a must visit to your funky junk stash to check everything out. One question. The rusty discs, where did you find them? I have seen them in booths at antique malls. Depending on the vendor they can be expensive. They don’t sell them at hardware stores in this condition, do they. I will look into these cause to me they’re pure gold. Now that’s an oxymoron. Thanks for creating these gems. Merry Christmas!
Thanks Joanne! The metal discs are called washers. I found a big bucket of them at a barn sale but you could also try welding places or salvage yards. There are ways to rust them but I haven’t needed to figure that out yet! haha
Wow Donna! These are amazing!! Love all the trees you have made this year. Looks like you have been having fun 🙂
You are sooooo good at staging. Love all your ideas. Thanks for being you.
Yay, for steampunk. I love how your junkified Christma turned out. Using a chain is genius, Donna. Super cool