For several years I was on the committee for our local Festival of Trees. I have decorated hundreds of "themed" trees. The festival fizzled out over the years so I started decorating small trees with vintage items and selling them in my booth. My next few posts will show off some of the ones I have done over the years.
I also have an extensive collection of old games and toys. I love Lincoln Logs and I had a box of misc parts and pieces.
I find my trees at garage sales and Goodwill. I try to pay no more than $1 per tree. This one was screwed into this small galvanized bucket.
I knew how to build a Lincoln Log house. After all, I have been doing it since I was a child! I loved building structures from Lincoln Logs! I needed to build one that wouldn't fall apart. I wasn't sure glue would hold it together long term.
I started by drilling holes in the "connector" part of the log. Then I started building the structure supported by four dowel rods. I also used glue to further hold the structure together.
When I got to the portion that had to hold the tree, I used the screws that had held the tree in the bucket. I nailed two pieces of scrap wood to the Lincoln Logs. I traced the outline of the tree base and marked where the tree base had held the screws.
Then I kept building. A couple more layers and then I added the roof. I cut the green slats down to size and notched out the two that met where the stem of the tree met the apex of the roof.
Then I started decorating. I used felt stars, pine cones and what else—the small Lincoln Logs! I drilled holes and ran the branch through the holes.
And for the topper? Another house!
I built it the same way as the base, using dowel rods to ensure it would stay together. I topped it off with the chimney. The tip of the tree pokes through the chimney. You have to scrunch the branches together to get them to fit inside the house. I used tiny bottle brush wreaths to decorate the house. A tiny little cardinal made its home there!
This is the completed tree. I think it turned out well. Turns out I couldn't sell it. It is now a permanent part of my Lincoln Log collection.
I will post more tree creations over the next couple months leading up to Christmas.