diy wooden christmas tree criss cross

the flattest and most low maintenance one you'll ever own

Material:

2 pieces of wood (mdf 10mm) I went with 80 cm by 120 cm

jigsaw

sand paper

a round object as template

ruler and pencil

thick paper to make yourself a template to draw around

thin paper like silk paper thats kinda see through to put on top your drawing to make a template

paint

so I divided my piece of wood in half width wise, 80 cm in half and made a middle line at 40 cm.

height wise I divided the 120 cm in 4 pieces, each 30 cm high

i made myself a template 40 cm wide and 30 high wich I could use for the 3 tears below the top and I flipped it to mirror the pattern on the other side.

I kept the 90 degree corner up top to have a guide and a straight line to align with my middle line.

on the right side I just tried some designs and freehanded a bit.

but I decided on a symmetric pattern pretty quickly wich way why the template was a safe bet.

you can totally freehand a tree if you like, but you have to make sure to have a matching middle line, to be able to put the pieces together.

i had this random lamp foot around because I want to upcycle it, so I just used the foot as a round guide. its about 12 cm in diameter.

I placed it around to create a stomp and then the shape of a tear.

its easiest if you do leave the 90 degree corner up top and just connect the angled line (top of the branch) and the stomp on top free hand.

once I had a shape I liked on the wood I took my see through paper and put it on top and perfected it on there, the I glued it onto a piece of thick cardboard like paper and cut it out to have a stable template to handle around.

for the top tear I put a big circle at the tip and then I put my template on top and connected it, but I cut off the third 'circle' to make it shorter.

once I hace the whole tree planned out I made the stomp a little bigger to give it more structural stability

i also went ahead and put the markings for the slit next to the middle line.

since the mdf I used is 10 mm thick you have to have a slit a least 10 mm. I measured 6 mm from each side of the middle line, wich made my slit 12 mm.

to be sure it fits.

to have two pieces, that fit into each other and to create a cross shape you cut the slit from the bottom to the exact middle on one mdf board and from the top to the middle on the other board.

like so.

I cut the mdf outside, cause its a loooot of cutting and saw dust.

make sure you try your fit before heading inside, sometimes you'll have to make small changes to make it fit perfectly.

I accidentally cut into the shape a little at one spot

and patched it with wood filler before I painted. things happen...

then I went ahed and primed the mdf, since mdf is kinda nasty with paints, it sucks it up like a sponge. so make sure you prime and seal the wood.

I then painted it an off white cream colour (actually the leftover from the dresser)

I left the pieces leaning onto the wall to dry, wich was not the best thing cause they warped a bit because of the humidity in the paint, so make sure they're straight when drying

let your paint fully dry before you slide the pieces together, otherwise they might dry when tucked into each other and its a paint to get them back out

I went an put in some little eyelet screws to put ornaments on if needed

but honestly can't decide if I like it better with or without the ornaments, we even thought about using it as advent calendar to hang little pouches on, also an option