Hi guys! If you are stopping over for the second time today, welcome back!
Earlier today I shared the week 4 update for The One Room Challenge and I mentioned that my goal for this next week is to get the gallery wall up.
I’ve got a few pieces that I’m still working on for it, but I am really excited to show you all how one of my favorites came together just in time for the monthly Thrift Store Challenge!
The Rules:
- Upcycle an item(s) from a thrift store, resale store, or garage sale into a new piece of decor.
- There’s no monthly theme.
- There’s no budget to stick to.
Meet the Hosts
I picked up this wooden Christmas tree dish last summer and it sat in the garage on the to do list thinking that I would be able to make something cool out of it for Christmas.
Of course I forgot about it and found it a couple of weeks ago while we were cleaning out the garage.
I’ve been racking my brain for woodland themed wall decor ideas for Lucas’ room so my wheels started turning I knew that I could probably incorporate this somehow.
This is one of those projects that I didn’t have a solid plan for. I just kind of winged it but am so happy with how cute it came together!
Supplies Used: (Affiliate links may be provided for convenience. For more info, see my full disclosure here.)
- Painters Tape
- Acrylic Paint
- Medium Grit Sandpaper
- Wood Round (not sure what they are called but this is the closest I could find)
- Wood Owl (found at Joanns, similar linked)
- Hot Glue Gun
- D Ring Picture Hanger
I then used a light green acrylic paint on the outside of the tree as well as the top rim.
I let it dry for a few minutes and then went over the inside of the dish with a dark gray acrylic paint. As you can see I didn’t worry about being too precise next to the edges since I planned on using sandpaper to distress it later on.
I sanded the tree trunk down and found out that I didn’t even need to re-stain it since I really liked the raw and natural feeling that it ended up having.
At this point I honestly became a little stuck. I first tried to cut a bear silhouette out of a tin pop can, but it didn’t turn out too well. Then I thought about writing something fun inside. But I couldn’t figure out what.
Finally I spotted a cute little wooden owl one day at Joanns and inspiration struck!
I used a light gray paint to paint a moon, stars and tree branch. I’m no artist by any means, but I’m pretty impressed with my free handing skills here!
Okay, I did use a glass to trace the curves for the moon so it wasn’t 100% freehanded…more like 99%!
I wanted the owl to kind of pop out so I used some hot glue to attach a small wood button and then glued the owl on top of that.
I went back and added a few more twigs to the bottom of my branch to fill out the space a little better.
Once I finally happy with it I attached a D-ring hanger to the back so that I could hang it up on the wall.
I’m glad I decided to leave the owl unpainted because he really stands out against the dark sky scene.
And now for more thrifty goodness!
Check out what my fellow upcyclers created below!