Faux Rusted Vintage Christmas Tree

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree, How Rusted are thy branches! This faux rusted galvanized metal Christmas decor may not be your traditional bright and cheery Holiday colors, but the vintage look works perfectly with the burlap, lace, and pearls. You’ll be Rockin’ around this rusted Christmas Tree all season long!

Faux rusted galvanized metal dollar tree vintage christmas tree diy decor made with wooden shims, burlap, lace, pearls, music sheet, rusted with the cinnamon technique for a vintage style.

This Faux Rusted Vintage Christmas Tree was my portion of the Fakers and Home Makers Christmas Crafting event over on good ‘ole Facebook! I don’t do a ton of events, so when I do, you know it’s a good one.

This project was ALSO Day 2 of my 24 day Countdown to Craftmas! So it was a double whammy. I’m not exactly writing these blog posts in order, so instead of telling you to go check out Day 1, I’m gonna send you over to Day 4 to see the Wood Block Christmas presents we made, because they are just Oh So Cute!

Make sure to check back for the other 23 days of the 2021 Countdown to Craftmas, but for now, back to Day 2.

The combination of the Vintage, the burlap, the lace, the music notes, the pearls, the whole thing……it’s a total vibe!

You can faux rust just about about anything, but galvanized metal is my Fave. It takes an ordinary Dollar Tree metal piece and transforms it into aged rusty vintagy goodness. The best part? It’s done with Cinnamon! I’ll show ya how…

This post may contain affiliate links for your convenience (which means if you make a purchase after clicking a link I will earn a small commission but it won’t cost you a cent more!)

Supplies Needed to make a Faux Rusted Vintage Christmas Tree

8 Wooden Shims- I used 8″ Nelson Contractor Shims
Galvanized Metal Christmas Tree
Scrapbook paper- I used Vintage Christmas style
Burlap
Lace
Pearl adhesive
Silver Bells
Twine
Wired mini bell hanger- Mine was from Dollar Tree
Pearls
Cinnamon
Waverly Antique Wax or stain
Small wood craft cubes
Cardboard rectangle about 5″x 8″
Mod Podge
Glue Gun

How to Make a Faux Rusted Vintage Christmas Tree Decor

I made this gorgeous Vintage Christmas Tree decor on video, so you can WATCH the step by step tutorial HERE or click on the picture right below.

Amanda holding the completed Christmas project on a Facebook live thumbnail.

Watch the video tutorial here

First things first, you’re gonna stain 8 wooden shims with Antique Wax or stain. You want to do this because although you can’t see the stained wood through the scrapbook paper, but you can see it through the lace, burlap, and pearl adhesive. So rather then just staining a few of them, I went ahead and did all 8.

Wooden Nelson contractor shims in a white box.

Next, cut your pieces of scrapbook paper, lace, burlap, and pearls to the size of each of your shims. I just traced the shape onto the back and then cut them out and Mod podged the strips to the shims.

Close up of the faux rusted galvanized metal and the burlap with pearls.

Sand the edges of the shims with scrapbook paper to give them a more finished look.

Next, you glue the shims to the cardboard rectangle backing, making sure to off set them, and alternate them thick end/thin end, thick end/thin end, and so on. This is just how I did it. You don’t have to do it exactly the same of course, you could make all of your shims line up if you like.

Portrait view of the left side of the faux rusted vintage tree showing the wooden shims with scrapbook paper, lace, burlap, pearls, and music sheet paper.

Now that we’ve got our background all made, it’s time to rust this baby up! It’s MUCH easier then it looks.

Just “paint” Mod Podge onto the metal, and sprinkle cinnamon over the top. Concentrate on the edges and any place that metal would rust naturally, like cracks and crevices. You can make it as rusted, or as lightly rusted as you like.

Close up of the bottom edge of the galvanized metal christmas tree showing the edges are most rusted part of the metal.

Now glue your Faux Rusted Christmas Tree onto your background, with some wood craft cubes behind it to give it some depth and raise it up off of the surface.

Do the same faux rust process to 3 small silver bells. Tie each one to the end of a small piece of twine. I added a pearl to one of them for some extra pizazz!

Small silver bells looking rusty hanging from a piece of twine with a pearl bead.

Glue the 3 silver bells to the top of the rusted Christmas Tree and then make a loopy twine bow to glue to the very tippy top like you see below.

Twine bow with hanging rusted silver bells and a pearl bead at the top of the galvanized metal christmas tree.

Last but not least, glue a strip of wired mini silver bell garland to the back up top as the hanger. You could also use regular twine or a wood bead hanger if you don’t have this Dollar Tree garland.

A wired mini silver bell garland as a hanger for the completed project.

Are you going to make this Faux Rusted Vintage Christmas Tree decor, or any type of DIY decor this Christmas? If you do, I’d love to see it! Pop on over to our free Craftspiration Facebook group, and join in on the fun by posting a pic of your completed DIY’s and crafts. I just love to see all your creative and crafty creations!

If you’ve got a million projects on your crafting ‘to-do’ list like I do, than you need my FREE Craft Project Planner so you can plan to make *all the things*! When you sign up for the craft planner, I’ll also send you lot’s of fun, easy, and budget friendly ideas for you to fill it up with!