Upcycle Your Old Holiday Decorations - Sled
Wooden Sled
As we were decorating for this year’s holidays we noticed that there were a lot of items we weren’t using. Either they didn’t fit the colours we liked or they were simply too old and dated. Instead of adding to the landfill I decided I would do a little upcycling. Here’s what I did to an old wooden sled that has been in the family for about 30 years….
1. Choose the item you’d like to upcycle and decide what kind of theme you’d like to follow. - I chose an ivory and gold theme to match the rest of our decor
The Original Sled
Step 2
2. Prepare your surface. – With the sled I had to take off the old decorations, leather string and strip the older varnish off the wood surface (you can use whatever painting thinner you are comfortable working with)
Follow the directions on the thinner you choose to remove the varnish
Step 3
3. Once the surface was cleaned (of varnish and wash with soap and water) I let it dry over night to make sure I wasn’t trapping anything in the wood grain.
Leaving it over night to dry
4. I began by white washing the sled with a thin coat of white stain. I used a cloth instead of a brush to rub the stain into the wood grain. – This will give the wood a smooth little coloured even coat across the entire surface.
Step 4
Step 5
5. Because I didn’t want the sled to be the same tone of white all around I decided to add thicker coats of stain in certain areas. This helps give the wood some dimension and interest.
6. Once the colour of the stain was looking complete I used a clear spray varnish to seal the paint.
7. After the varnish is dry I reattached the leather string, and starting shopping for some holiday decorations that would match my theme.
Leather String
Embellishments can be found around the house to be more cost effective and environmentally friendly
8. When embellishing keep in mind your levels (different heights) layers (different widths), and textures. – Together these elements move your eyes around the final product smoothly
9. I knew that I wanted to have tall pillar candles as part of the decoration (remember that if you’re going to use candles that they will be able to burn safely around other items – I used the glass votives as protection). That left me to find something to sit at a medium height and a smaller item to sit closest to the sled. (I found the gold leaves as the item to rest on the sled as a neutral tone and the straw stars add a texture that you want to fell.
You can even put extra candles and decorations around your new item to fill up the space