It hadn’t occured to me when I brought home my mini-tree that I didn’t have an official tree topper. As in, I’ve never had one. I do recall that a tree that I decorated in 2006 featured a J.Crew tissue paper bow (I was working there part-time that holiday season). It was cute, modest, and polka dotted. I wish I could find the picture I had of it. I don’t remember what we did in 2007 or 2008 for a tree topper. Truthfully, my then-roomie and I might have just decorated the tree with lights and called it a day.
But the new mini, fully adorned with fun ornaments, white lights, and tin foil garland really needed a topper. Unlike some trees I’ve had in the past, it had the perfect totally-upright spike just asking to be shoved up an angel dress.
The inspiration for the tree topper was a piece of holiday decor that I snapped a picture of last January when I was visiting a Cleveland advertising agency for something related to my then full-time gig.
Doing a little interpretative dance, I thought it would be something I could easily make for my own home (I have no idea where they sourced it originally). I got really excited when last month, my friend Robbie (the one with this fun beach house) was clearing out her garage and offered me and Pete a carload of scrap wood from their many home improvement projects. No official picture of the car filled to the brim, but know that we came back with some great plywood, 2×6 + 2×4 boards, leftover pieces of trim, an old mirror (because I’m a mirror addict), and a few real wood floorboards.
Decidedly, those floorboards would be the perfect for a little holiday star project, and using just two of the boards would provide just enough wood to create a modest tree topping piece.
I cut the boards into five 12″ pieces using the chop saw. After lightly sanding them by hand, I loosely assembled the pieces to form a star.
The boards are great quality. Thick, not flimsy. Wide and sturdy. And where I thought I’d have to use the nail gun or short staples to hold the star securely, wood glue and clamps did just fine.
Side note: Here’s Cody, my official helper, never taking things too seriously:
What I actually like best about the entire piece: the star ended up being very dimensional because boards don’t have any flex to them, so each board is only connected to a single glued point on another board. No star is glued in more than one place. From this angle it sort of looks like randomly layered pieces of wood instead of a star.
I created a little loop on the back to simply (and subtly) hold the star in place against the top of the tree using a piece of wax string and two tiny screws from my scrap drawer that weren’t long enough to penetrate the board fully (nothing complicated about this):
Perfectly scaled for my mini-tree (and bringing in some rustic/homey feel), it’s a pretty addition.
I did leave the wood completely unfinished. I love the natural texture, especially how it plays up the wooden barrel base.
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