There’s nothing quite like bringing a real Christmas tree into your home over the festive season. The shape, the smell, the needles stabbing you in the feet. Whether you went with Pine, Spruce of Fir, eventually January will arrive and it will be time to let it go. There will also be a load of other people wanting to get rid. Hello, free resources! There are lots of things that you can make and to be honest, the sky is the limit. This blog post contains 7 ideas to get you started and spark your creativity. Make them yourself and make them with your children and students. Here’s to a positive start to 2021!

Now is the time to send out the call to your community for trees after the festive season comes to an end. Depending on your situation, you might be able to offer collection. Otherwise just ask people to deliver their trees so that you can use them to make awesome stuff! Some will, others won’t but if you don’t ask, you won’t get!

Important Note: All of the things in this post are going to give you opportunities to use tools with students. Take the time to introduce them properly and have conversations that are going to help students keep themselves and others safe. If you haven’t used sheath knives yet, check out our Knife Basics page.

Wooden Spinners

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Check out this post in our Project Inspiration Series on How to Make Wooden Spinners. Whether you use it to incorporate measurement skills or you just want to have a massive ‘Nature Beyblade’ competition, this project is a win.

Log Santas

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One use that we’ve found for a log cut on an angle is these adorable log Santas which students made to sell at our Grade 3 Christmas Market. Sawing the trunk on an angle provides you with a lovely, free-standing shape that you can do lots with. You can burn patterns, paint designs or simply write messages of 2021 positivity.

Harry Potter Wands

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“It’s Levi-O-sa, not Levio-SAR.” Channel your inner geek and make something that you can pretend you bought at Ollivanders with Hagrid. Again, make sure that you’ve been to check out our Knife Basics before getting stuck in.

Small World Settings

Create some trees in your small world setting. Where else is it ok to have elephants and dinosaurs hanging out in the same place? Alternatively, you might want to season your most recent concoction in the mud kitchen with a sprinkle of magical needles. Let your imagination go wild!

Noughts and Crosses

Also known as ‘Tic Tac Toe’ by our friends across the pond, this is a cute little project which involves a fair amount of sawing. You’ll also need a soldering iron to create the lines on the board and pieces. Alternatively, this could be done with pens and markers. We used bow saws to cut the game board from the trunk and hacksaws to cut the counters from the thicker branches.

Baubles and Gift Tags

Being able to say that next year’s tree decorations or take-home-crafts are going to be made out of last year’s Christmas tree is pretty cool. And once you cut the discs, you can do anything with them that you like. Paint them, brand them or simply leave them au naturel. The sky is the limit.

Key Rings

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Get some practise in with your concave cuts, thumb pushes and stop cuts. Oh, and there’s some drilling too. Check out this post from out Projection Inspiration Series on How To Make Wooden Key Rings.

Other uses for left over Christmas Trees

• Burn it (cue creosote discussion here)
• Protect plants from frost with it
• Mulch it
• Recycle it
• Donate it to a good cause (e.g. in some places, they are used to reinforce sand dunes against erosion from the sea!)

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So there you have it, a little inspiration for some of the things that you can make instead of just throwing out your Christmas Tree. If you’ve got any other ideas, we’d love to hear about them!