DIY Wood Christmas Trees

These rustic DIY wood Christmas trees are fun and inexpensive projects, while still looking like works of art! The neutral colors lend themselves to fit with any decor!

Happy December!! We are knee deep in all things Christmas around here, how about you? I am excited to share my first Christmas craft with you today. These DIY wood Christmas trees turned out amazing!

I was inspired to make these wood chip Christmas trees after seeing these Studio McGee rustic trees at Target. Immediately upon seeing them, I knew I wanted to recreate them. And I am happy to say that I made mine for about $5 for both!

I tried to find some wood chips like the ones in the inspiration trees. I thought about using driftwood but these smoking chips were the more practical option. They are super easy to get and super inexpensive! There are also enough wood chips leftover to make lots more. You could literally have a crafting party and everyone could make their own trees. How fun would that be?!?

I did use two bags of wood chips as there are not as many bigger chips as smaller chips but you could absolutely make both trees out of one bag if needed. I wanted my trees to resemble the Target ones with the bigger wood chips and this was as close as I got. 🙂

DIY Wood Chip Christmas Trees

Now I am going to be honest, this is not a craft for the faint of heart or for a beginner crafter. It is not that it was hard, it is just very intricate. It felt almost like I was putting together a puzzle as you can see in the video. Since there was no road map for me to follow, I also had to figure it out as I went along. If you are a puzzle person, you will LOVE this project!

I may or may not have had to rip of the top two layers on the small tree because I did not like how it turned out. LOL I am happy to say it is looking much better now. Thankfully it will be easier for you as I have laid the road map out for you. 😉

I think my favorite part about these Christmas trees is all the various shades of wood chips that were used and the amount of texture they have. It really adds to the rustic look and feel of them.

Supplies to make DIY wood Christmas trees

*There are links to products in this post that I use or are similar to products I use. If you buy something from one of these links, I may make a small commission (with no additional cost to you) from the purchase. I will not recommend anything that I would not buy myself.

Watch the quick video

Don’t want to read all the instructions? I have included a video in this post showing you how to make these DIY wood Christmas trees. If you can’t see the video, turn off your ad blocker. Also, if you ever want to slow down the video, just click on the three dots in the lower right hand corner of the video and you can change the playback speed. If you want more detailed instructions, continue reading.

How to make a cone Christmas tree

The first step in making these rustic wood chip Christmas trees is to make some cone trees. These will be the foundation to glue the wood chips onto. I made both trees out of one piece of poster board. You could also just buy some Paper Mache trees if you don’t want to make them but this is easy enough and more cost friendly. 🙂 I have made some cone Christmas trees previously with some tutorials if you want to check them out as well. These DIY Cone Christmas trees were made in a similar way to this but these DIY glitter cone trees were made in a different way.

First, cut your poster board in half to make it easier to roll into the cones. You will end up with two 22″x14″ pieces. Take one piece and start rolling and unrolling a corner several times to make it more pliable and easy to roll.

The cones can be a little tricky to shape, just play around with it until you get a narrow top. It does not have to be perfect as it will be covered with wood chips. When the top seems as narrow as you can get it, put a piece of tape on the inside seam. Then add another piece of tape around the top edge and hot glue the rest of the seam down.

Measure and cut to desired length

I made my DIY wood Christmas trees similar sizes to the Target ones so I cut them off at 12″ and 9″ respectively. Hook a tape measure onto the point of the cone tree and measure down 12″. Using a pencil, make some lines next to the 12″ mark at different spots around the cone.

Using your dotted line as a guide, cut of the excess poster board. I found it easiest to cut up to the dotted line, then cut around it so you can cut all layers of the poster board at the same time.

How to make a rustic wood Christmas tree

Once you have your cone tree made, you can start applying the wood chips. Pour your bag of wood chips into a big bowl for easier sorting.

Start by sorting out the biggest wood chips for the bottom row. Then start gluing on the wood chips, making sure the bottom edges line up with the bottom of the cone.

To glue on the wood chip, just run a bead of hot glue on the back side and hold it onto the cone for several seconds to make sure it is secure.

This is where the wood chip trees became like a puzzle. You have to find the right piece to fit next to the one you just put on. Ha! You may have to try all different ways to put it on by turning it over and flipping it around and doing it all over again. It is a bit of a challenge but the end product is a nice reward. Don’t say I didn’t warn you though. 😉

The height of the wood chips were not as important as the width on the first several rows. There are a few spots that you can see between the wood chips but that didn’t bother me. It is not as noticeable in real life as it is in the pictures. You could always use a tan colored poster board to avoid that if it bothers you. Start adding the second row by layering it slightly on top of the first row.

Continue adding rows of wood chips using smaller wood chips as you go.

If you have a very wide wood chip in the previous row that you already glued on, you can take some wire cutters and snip off the corner of the wide wood chip. This makes it easier to glue down a wood chip on top of it. I did not take any pictures of this but you can see this in the video.

Forming the wood Christmas tree top

The last couple of rows at the top of the tree were by far the most difficult. The key to this was to use some more narrow pieces especially when forming the point of the Christmas tree. Sometimes you even have to layer the wood chips as seen in the picture below.

For the point of the tree, I used very narrow wood chips. You can even cut down some chips to be more narrow if you need to. I also found it helpful to cut the wood chips into blunt points to form the tree top better. Glue on three narrow wood chips that come together at the top to form the point.

Continue adding more narrow chips to the top to fill in the open space. I would go over and under the chips that were glued on, depending on how they fit the best. A puzzle, remember?

I am really happy with how these DIY wooden Christmas trees turned out! They are definitely going to be something I use to decorate with every year. They literally look like something I bought in the store! And with them being a neutral color, they will go with any future Christmas color scheme I use!

Are you willing to try this Christmas tree craft? Since it is such an intricate project, it does take some time to make one but you could finish one in an afternoon for sure. Let me know what you think! I will be back next week with another fun Christmas project for you. Have a great week!