Vintage Yardstick Christmas Ornament

Hi there! Is it too early to be thinking about Christmas? I know. We haven’t even celebrated Halloween yet, how can I be talking about Christmas already? Well I have quite a few vintage-y, crafty, DIY Christmas projects I’d like to share, and there are only eight weeks until THE BIG DAY. That’s not a lot of time to cover everything I’ve got planned, including some vintage home decor stuff I’d like to post about, too.

So I hope you’ll be able to forgive the early intrusion and enjoy a project that has a little farmhouse flair that will brighten any tree or little cranny you may want to display it in. Working with yardsticks on my farmhouse coat rack last month led to several ideas, all of which I will post about in due time. T

oday’s is a yardstick “back-drop” if you will for my mini wreaths that I make bushels of every year and use in all sorts of different ways. You can see some of the ways here and here and here.

The “trick” to the project is cutting and gluing the yardstick pieces together to create a “pallet” to hang the mini wreath on. I have a miter saw, so the cutting part is not a problem. [If  you don’t own one, you could glue three yardsticks, side by side, allow them to dry and then take them to a hardware [or big box] store and have them cut them into smaller-sized pieces for you.]

My initial plan was to make 7″ long pallets and hang two wreaths from each. I changed that plan mid-way when I didn’t care for the way they looked. New plan: Cut your yardstick into 4″ pieces. You will need three pieces to make one pallet. Also, I chose yardsticks with red or partially red writing for a more Christmas-y look.

Apply a bead of glue along the edges and press them together. I did this on top of a piece of wax paper, in case any excess glue squeezes out. You don’t want your project to become glued to your work table(!).

For extra support, glue a shorter piece of yardstick to the back of each. [Please excuse its ugliness. The brace was so light in contrast to the vintage pallet that I decided to stain it and went a little too dark, I think, lol.] I suggest you simply use smaller, craft sticks as braces.

Here you see three of the pallets in the 7″ size. I eventually cut them so I had three 4″ pieces and three 3″ pieces (yes, I could have made six 3.5″ pieces, but I wasn’t thinking clearly, obviously).

For the next step you will need to make some mini wreaths, which are super simple and can be used in several different ways. Follow the directions in my mini wreath post and you’ll have no trouble at all.

Attach the wreaths to the pallets, using a hot glue gun, and then drill holes in the corners to string some wire (I used faux rusty wire) through for hanging. To make the curlicues, leave some excess wire on each end and wrap it around a pencil.

On some I went fairly simple with no “merry christmas” salutation.

But for others, I added it in, depending on how I felt at any given moment. You can find them hanging in my booth at the Shaker Craft Fair, priced at $5.00 each.

I hope you enjoyed today’s craft! I’ve had several people ask me recently do I “mind” if readers copy my projects? Heck no! That’s why I do it–for the love of creating and to pass on [what I hope are] good ideas to others who will love creating them, too 🙂 So start looking for those vintage yardsticks and be sure to send me photos (or better yet, post them in my Facebook group, Your Vintage Headquarters). I’d love to see them.

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