Tree Branch Wall Art

While I'm busy helping work on our Jack and Jill bathroom makeover - which really means since we are at the plumbing stage I'm sitting and watching - I decided to repost this cheap, simple, basically free project I made a couple years ago from a tree branch.


I regularly pin things to the Bliss Ranch Pinterest Boards that I intend on doing.

I'll be busy making stuff till the year 2050, which when I first typed that year it sounded so far away, but for a baby born today they would only be 34 years old.  Wow.

In 2050 I won't be in my 30's any longer, and I haven't been for a while anyway.  Or 40's, or 50's and so on and so on.  And if I'm alive I probably won't be making anything either,  besides trips around the nursing home grounds and that's only if I'm one of the fortunate ones to have use of my limbs.

Now that I've totally depressed myself about aging, I wonder how old this tree branch is?  Count the rings, and sing the alphabet song while you do it because that's what I'm turning these into.

I pinned the idea a year ago from Aesthetic Outburst without reading the whole post.  I cut the tree branches a size I thought would work and closed them in a cabinet, lets say so they could "rest" not because it took me a year to get back to them.

When I decided to finally make them I pulled up the inspiration post again.

First I put a white wash on the tops to get rid of some of those dark spots.  Nothing thick because I wanted to see the wood, just watered down white craft paint.

As I looked closer at the post and actually read the tutorial, I discovered they were in fact magnets for the fridge and they are in fact shown stuck on a refrigerator, not a white wall like I thought.

I still loved them, but it created a problem.

Being married to a drywall contractor I'm lucky I have things hanging on the walls at all!  Poking holes in that beautiful smooth gypsum ruins it's beauty you know, forget that it's an easy patch as he has found through the years when I attempt to hang a gallery wall.

In the early years of marriage I think it actually caused him great emotional pain to hammer nails into drywall.

Anyway, so hanging 26 letters individually on the glorious gypsum wasn't gonna happen. 



The original tutorial used pre-made press on letters.  I made my own press on's with my Silhouette Cameo instead.

Stick 'em on - paint over them - peel 'em back off.

At first I used black craft paint just like the original idea, but I didn't have good luck with it.  My craft paint bled underneath the vinyl, so I had to flip a few tree stubs over to re-do them, and then I used thicker chalkboard paint instead, which worked great, no bleed.

OK, now back to the dilemma of how to hang them.....  Enter a piece of scrap wood from the garage that got a coat of ASCP in Old White then dry brushed with CeCe Caldwell Pittsburgh Grey and sanded smooth.

Fasten 26 letters to 1 piece of wood for one nail hole in the wall = a happy drywall-er.

I dabbed a spot of glue on the bottoms to hold each letter in place so the whole thing could be flipped over and each tree piece could get a nail on the back side to be firmly attached.

I think I'm going to hang it in the hallway by my sons bedroom, above where the goldfish live.

I use the word "live" loosely, as it could change at any moment.

I would of shown you that spot for this post, but a little aquarium with dirty water and sad fish eyes peering out didn't sound like a great staging opportunity.

So for now this will have to do.

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