So I have this thing with DIYing. I love it! I know that most people would much rather just buy something but if I see something that I like I immediately ask myself, “Could I make that?” Most of the time the answer is yes but what really depends is how hard will it be and would it cost me more to make it then if I just bought it?
That didn’t change a few weeks ago when I was in Target buying toothpaste but walked out with $200 worth of things I didn’t really need..or did I?
While there I spotted these trees…
Knowing that in our garage we had a stack of shims I knew I could make a version of this and that’s exactly what I did. I grabbed a hold of the shims along with some leftover chalk paint and a box cutter.
The thing about shims is that one side is pretty thin and the other rather thick so using a box cutter I just starting cutting the thin side into the pieces I would need.
Next I painted the pieces. I wasn’t trying to be perfect by any means just getting a coat on.
Then, using a tree form I purchased at Michael’s and a hot glue gun I started layering the pieces all around starting at the bottom. There often were spots that needed a filler so I cut a shim to make it work.
Once that row was done I started with the next row and then the next row making sure to overlap.
This next part was a blogger fail because I finished the whole thing and didn’t take a picture when I got to the top but the finished product should give you an idea of what I did. When I reached the top of the tree I used pieces that were cut triangular so that the top came to a point. Once I finished I took some metallic paint and roughly painted the bottoms of each shim.
Here’s the finished product. Not to shabby if I may say so myself! Now I know that it doesn’t look identical to the Target one but DIYing isn’t about perfection, it’s about making it your own!
