Wooden toys for decorating the Christmas tree were the first of their kind. Later they learned how to make glass products, and plastic came into use relatively recently. Despite the variety of modern materials for production, Christmas-tree decorations made of plywood do not lose their relevance and return to New Year's trees.
Why you should get a plywood toy for a Christmas tree
Home collections are predominantly filled with modern plastic decorations that are bought every year, or with antique glass balls and figurines that decorated our mothers and grandmothers with Christmas trees in childhood. Christmas toys made of plywood are almost never found.
Why you should get a couple of toys from a plywood sheet:
- Original handmade jewelry will not be found anywhere else;
- The ability to decorate the tree to your liking;
- The reason to do craftsmanship and make a toy with your own hands, the opportunity to take a child and spend time together
- A new product at least every day;
- A bunch of positive emotions from the result.
Christmas toys do not lose their relevance for several seasons: they not only decorate a tree, but also hang them on walls, doors, give each other. Crafts can also be made specifically for a gift or sale for those wishing to receive exclusive New Year attributes.
DIY craftsmanship
As already mentioned, making your own jewelry is much more valuable than getting ready-made typical toys. This is a very simple process, just get the necessary material, a tool and connect your imagination.
Why we choose plywood sheets as the material for Christmas toys:
- Old trimmed sheets used for construction can be used;
- Crafts can be of any size;
- Christmas toys made of plywood do not break, do not break, they can be safely given to children.
So let's get started.
Preparation of the workplace and tools
In order to make a Christmas tree decoration with your own hands, we will use a small workbench or, in extreme cases, a kitchen table previously covered with thick oilcloth. In order not to damage the countertop, we recommend putting a plywood sheet on it.
For cutting you will need:
- Manual or electric jigsaw (which is available);
- Drill with a set of drills;
- Fine sandpaper;
- For reliable fixation of fragments, it is ideal to use hot-melt glue from an electric gun. In extreme cases, prepare carpentry glue and PVA;
- Acrylic paints and transparent varnish for fixing from the same material;
- Decorations: paper, beads, crumb of polyethylene, trimming tinsel and satin ribbons foil, ready-made images of New Year and Christmas themes - this item is limited only by your imagination.
Option 1: ordinary Christmas tree decoration
Ordinary Christmas toys made of plywood are flat, in the form of various fairy-tale characters, traditional New Year attributes and heroes. To accurately and accurately cut the desired outline, prepare image templates in advance. They can be drawn on paper or downloaded from the Internet, printed and cut.
Then proceed according to such a plan:
- Transfer the image to the plywood sheet - circle the template.
- Armed with a jigsaw, cut the toy along the drawn outline. When working with an electric tool, there are no problems; the process is running smoothly even by an inexperienced student.
It is more difficult with a manual jigsaw: the file must be directed strictly along the contour so that the hand does not tremble and the blade does not slip off and cut off the excess. For a power tool, prepare replacement files in advance.
- Drill a hole in the top of the toy with a drill.
- Sandpaper to process the saw cut, focusing on the formed chips.
- Now the decoration. If Christmas balls are supposed to be objects of natural wood color, skip this point. If you want to create full decorativeness, cover the blank with white acrylic enamel - it will become the background for future embellishments. When the layer is dry, paint the main drawing.
- If you don’t want to paint the craft yourself - stick a finished picture cut from paper or cardboard to the blank. For fixing, use PVA glue diluted with water in a 1: 1 ratio.
- Volumetric decoration stage. Beads, decorative snow, tinsel, foil come into play - everything that the imagination swings. Fix these decorations on hot-melt adhesive or transparent carpentry. At the end, cover the surface of the craft with acrylic varnish to fix the result.
- Pass a satin rope into the hole and tie a knot or a beautiful bow - the toy for decorating the spruce is ready.
Option 2: Volumetric Decoration
By this concept we mean Christmas decorations made of several parts or those that can be put.
Do-it-yourself composite Christmas tree crafts are no more complicated than flat ones, on the contrary, the process becomes more fun.
- We take the same base material and translate the template onto it.
- For complex products, we make markings for holes according to the scheme.
- Cut the contour, clean the edges.
- Connect the fragments. If the toy is flat composite, for the connection we use ribbons or kapron threads that we bind into durable double or triple knots. If the toy is on a support, we work with the workpieces according to the instructions, for example, insert parts into each other.
- Decor of individual fragments can be done immediately after the preparation of individual elements or after assembly. In any case, the workpiece is subject to the same processing as a flat toy: enamel, picture, drawing, surround decor, lacquer fixation.
Voluminous Christmas tree decorations made of plywood can be used not only for hanging on New Year trees, but also as an independent toy for a child as a gift.
A homemade little thing, especially made of wood, can occupy a child for a longer time than modern expensive toys, and interest in it remains for a longer time. This is another argument in favor of making plywood products useful.
Garland
Christmas beads - an element as important as the toys themselves. We also include elegant garlands for a tree or a room. They can also be made of plywood according to the same principle as described above.
A few tips:
- A garland on a Christmas tree should be made in a simple form so that the decoration organically fits into the overall composition. Choose checkboxes, circles and other simple shapes. This will save time - there will be a lot of elements for carving and decoration.
- Use satin ribbons and decorative ropes to connect the elements so that the appearance of the product remains solemn.
- To fix the fragments on the rope, tie knots at the location of the element. So he will maintain his position with any bias of the thread.
- Put the ends of the rope in loops so that it is convenient to hang the garland.
What are the results
A couple of hours of work, satisfaction from the perfect process and pleasure from the result - all the emotions in a plywood toy. Add the attention of household and guests to the man-made product and success is guaranteed. DIY products never go out of fashion; they are passed down from generation to generation, carrying a piece of memory with them. Have you seen somewhere that such a set of values and emotions is contained in a serial plastic toy?