Scavenger Chic

3D Buffalo Plaid Christmas Trees

• By Joan
• November 26, 2023
• 4 Comments

3D Buffalo Plaid Christmas Trees

Are you ready to start decorating for the holidays?  Personally, I am not, but I did want to get this project out for all of you as you start planning your own decorations.  What we’re making today is a 3D buffalo plaid Christmas tree to use for decoration around the holidays.

I’m going to use a traditional red and black plaid pattern but feel free to use any colors that go with your decor.

Start by creating your pattern on a folded piece of plain paper.  Draw a Christmas tree shape on the fold and cut out, just like you would a Valentine heart.

Trace around your Christmas tree pattern onto a piece of scrap wood.  I’m using 1/2″ plywood but you could probably use any thickness between 1/4″ and 1″.

Cut out your tree with a band saw, jig saw or scroll saw.  I prefer a scroll saw, it’s super easy to use, and gets into all those tight corners with precision.

Once you have one tree cut out, you can use that as a pattern to make any future trees.

Find the center of your trees and draw a line, the thickness of your wood, about halfway up on one tree and starting at the top, halfway down on the other.

Cut these 2 pieces out with your saw.

The two pieces should just slide together to give you your 3D tree.

Since my trees are going to be used as a tabletop centerpiece, I wanted to cut enough pieces to make 3 trees (6 pieces in total) and the third tree taller than the other 2.  For the taller tree, I used the previously cut trees as my template and just added one more row of branches.  The first 2 trees were about 12″ in height and the third, about 14″.

Sand the edges of your newly cut trees.

If you don’t trust your free hand tree drawing, feel free to enlarge and print out mine.  Your center cut may vary depending on the thickness of the wood you use.

Painting Your Plaid Christmas Tree

Of course you can paint your trees in any style or color you like.  Mine are getting a red buffalo plaid check pattern since I already had the stencil on hand from redoing this old vintage typing table.

Give your trees a base coat of red paint.  I’m using chalk paint but acrylics would work just as well.

The tree edges are painted in black.

This is a link to a plaid stencil on  Amazon.  It is not the one I originally used because that one is not currently available.  Actually, this one might be better as it has a couple of  variations.

For those of you who would like to paint a plaid and have no intention of buying a stencil, here is a link to a Youtube video on Painting plaid with painters tape.

I lightly resanded the edges one more time since they will be getting a stain. Sanding gives a cleaner edge to where the red and black edges meet.

I finished with a coat of antique wax. Just paint on the wax and wipe off the excess.

The wax just tones down and muddies the red paint a little bit.  All the edges that were just sanded now look brown.

Time to decorate

Slide the trees back together and you’re ready to decorate for the season. Here they are decorating the mantel.

Grabbed the whole grouping (along with a cutting board) and moved it over to the table.  What was once mantel decor now makes a nice centerpiece.

For a longer table it would be so easy to add more trees.

The plaid Christmas trees  could easily be used as decoration  far into January.  When you’re ready to take them down, just slide apart and they hardly take up any storage room at all.

Until next time, stay inspired.

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