Make Your Own Snowflake-Shaped Wood Christmas Tree Decorations

Do you have some space on your Christmas tree and are sick of buying commercially produced Christmas decorations? Then why not consider making your own from old pieces of wood? 

The build is fairly simple, but the result is truly stunning. Follow this simple guide to find out how. 

As you can imagine, you'll need some tools and materials before you get started.

The best picks that will help you do the job

• Assorted strips of wood
• Table saw
• Gorilla wood glue
• HACHIEMON hand plane
• Wood clamps
• Dewalt table saw
• GALAX orbital sander
• TotalBoat clear varnish/lacquer

With everything in hand, it is time to get on with the build.

Step 1: Make the wood composite

The first step is to take your strips of wood and cut them into thin slivers. You'll want an assortment of different woods, especially lighter and darker kinds.

Arrange your slivers into a stack. Order the slivers as desired. Once happy, grab your wood glue and glue the strips together to make a composite block of wood. 

Clamp them together until the glue has fully cured. 

Once the glue has cured, remove the clamps, and sand/chisel off any excess dried glue. Then plane down the wood on all sides to make them nice and level. 

Step 2: Cut down the composite

With the piece nice and plane, we can now move on to the next phase of the build. Transfer your composite wood to your table saw and cut it down to size, as shown in the video. 

You'll want to remove all the excess pieces of wood, if any, from the composite block. 

With that done, and the piece is to the desired shape and dimensions, you can now transfer the composite to your CNC machine

Step 3: Engrave/cut the design

Clamp the wooden composite sheet into your CNC machine, load the design, and let the machine cut out the shapes. In this case, the design consists of a pair of snowflake-shaped decorations. 

Once done, remove the wood composite and give all sides of the piece a good working over with sandpaper or an orbital sander. With that done, take the piece to your table saw, and cut the composite piece in half vertically to produce two thin pieces. 

Push out the snowflakes as needed. 

Step 4: Finish the decorations

With that done, take the wooden composite snowflakes and drill a hole top one end of one arm of each snowflake. 

Next, take your varnish or lacquer, and work it into the exposed surfaces of the wooden snowflakes. For best results, use an old, but clean, rag, and work into the wood using smooth circular motions. 

Add a piece of string to the drilled hole in each snowflake as required. With that done, your DIY Christmas decorations are now complete. 

All you now need to do is find a space to display them on your tree!

If you enjoyed this simple, and quick, DIY project, you might enjoy some more woodwork? How about, for example, making your own moving reindeer-drawn sleigh?