I like BIG crates and I cannot lie! This year my favorite new thing that we built was our new Christmas Tree Crate Stand. Who says your tree should only wear skirts?! Sometimes you really have to think outside of the box, or shall I say crate (hardy har har), when it comes to dressing up the base of your tree.
A few years ago we upgraded our average size Christmas tree to a ten footer. Both our old and new house have two story ceilings in the living room and it just made more sense proportionally to get a larger tree.
The only downside to the larger tree was that suddenly our tree skirt looked teeny tiny next to it.
Here's an image of it from our old house two years ago (man, do I miss that room!)
Not horrible, but once I would start to place wrapped gifts around the tree, the skirt would pretty much disappear. It was like a mini skirt!
Last Christmas, I went on a hunt for a larger tree skirt and turned up empty. Retailers only seem to sell standard size skirts and anything I found online that I liked costs hundreds of dollars. I love my Christmas tree BUT not that much. I don't even spend hundreds of dollars on my own skirts!
I gave up on the hunt and moved onto Option B; make a skirt. Problem is I can't sew so I attempted to make the WORLD'S LARGEST no-sew tree skirt out of a drop-cloth and decorative fabric. Despite the fact that I painstakingly spent weeks burning off my finger tips with the hot glue gun, I actually thought it turned out kind of cute. Plus, now I can commit crimes thanks to my lack of DNA (just kidding, mom!)
Here's a picture that I shared of it on Instagram last year.
Fast forward to this year, and when I went to unpack all of my Christmas decor I was just not feeling the skirt anymore. It got kind of raggedy from being packed away for twelve months. I was bummed out about it (Hello!!I gave up HOURS of my life making that darn thing!) and made a mental note to try to search online again for "reasonably priced giant tree skirts".
Luckily, it didn't turn to that because then one day I had a light bulb moment and that light bulb moment turned into a GIGANTIC crate under my tree. Yippee!
Unfortunately, I didn't capture any photos of the building process as I was too busy wrangling a 2 year old, however, if you do a quick search on Pinterest you'll find all kinds of tutorials on how to build a crate. It doesn't take a lot of advance carpentry skills and they're rather fast to make. We used fence boards leftover from the playroom plank wall , but I've seen people use old pallets too. Just keep in mind to measure the base of your tree stand before you start! Also, we didn't include a bottom to our crate so that the base could stand flat on the floor. I finished our crate off with a coat of Mini Wax's Golden Pecan stain.
I absolutely adore how this project turned out and am kicking myself for not thinking of this sooner!
I love the rustic vibe it gives to our holiday decor.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thanks again for stopping by! This wraps up our holiday projects for this year. I'll be taking a break from blogging for a few days to spend some time with my family but wanted to wish all of you a delightful and safe Christmas!
In case you miss me, you can always find me hanging out over on Instagram. We have a few house projects planned during our holiday break and I'm sure I'll be sharing sneak peeks of them over on IG.
Hope to see you there!
Connect with me:
