Hello, All,

This is my first time making anything really to this scale for display.

I got the idea from a project that home depot had in one of their do it herself classes but that one was done on a smaller scale for inside. We had a bunch of old fence posts and I wanted to do something for the front porch (near my newly painted front door!).

Initially, I cut the wood to the same length and screwed on some random 2 x 4's we had in our pile of random wood.

I then started adding the ornaments that I had purchased. Well, great, that ran out, so I went out to buy more, which they didn't have, so I had to find some like it. Which I could not. But they were similar enough, but with different finishes so luckly the glue was not dry and I could pop some off the top and move them around. But, then that extra 75+ was also not enough, so I went on the hunt again. The bottom ones are slightly smaller, but by that point, I was kinda done and my son said he did not notice so I went with it. :)

I then wanted to add a pot at the bottom, and started out by painting it red. That ended up being too bright, so I followed that up with the chalk board paint thinking that it would be fun to write a message on it. I did not follow the another coat in 48 hours (I was not thinking, I guess)but ended up THRILLED with the results. I love how the paint cracked and you could see the red underneath. I might use this technique again, on a larger scale. It looks cool, in my opinion.

The star on top I had sitting out from a set that initially was a bronze color (I am the worse at forgetting to take before pics). So, I silvered it up with metallic paint topped in Testors glitter.

I realized that I wanted it to show up at night, as well, so later last night, I added the gifts underneath it.

As with most projects I complete, I have thought of several things i could have done differently, like adding something or changing something, but overall I am happy with my front porch tree and hope that it makes people going by smile.

Silver Tree