Happy Monday! Now that Thanksgiving is behind us all, I feel like it’s finally appropriate to start sharing Christmas decor on the blog. I am so excited today to be partnering with a few of my talented friends in a project we’re calling Peace, Love and DIY. Each of us used a similar wood die cut peace sign and created our own project with it.
Make sure you visit Charlotte, Corinna, and Tania to see what they’ve created and today I am sharing a peace sign tree topper with you.
When we all decided to create projects using peace signs, I had NO IDEA what I would do… I ordered my peace sign from Amazon and then just waited for inspiration to strike. And waited. In the mean time I went to Target with my kids one day and found a wooden paintable banner in the craft section for just five dollars.
I purchased it with no idea what I would do with that either. Because that’s how I do things. Often people go to the craft store with a list of items. Not me… I just go buy random things.
Anyhow, at some point, inspiration finally struck and I realized that there were enough wooden pieces to spell out, “peace, love, joy” and I could put the banner on my tree and make the peace sign my topper. I wanted them all to coordinate so gathered my supplies… General Finishes milk paint in Antique White as well as gilding wax. (Note: I ended up using Rub-N-Buff because my tub was old and hard).
I began by painting the sign and each section of wood with the Antique White. The wooden banner took two coats and the peace sign took three as it started out a little darker. Once I painted them and they dried, I used a dark brown paint I mixed with craft paints I had on hand to paint the letters. I didn’t want them to look too perfect, so I just free handed them. After the letters dried, I used the rub n buff on the tip of my finger to gild the edges of the peace sign and the wooden banner pieces.
Again, I kept this pretty imperfect because that was the look I wanted… casual and easy. Also, it’s much easier that way! 😉
After the peace sign was painted and dried, I needed to be able to secure it to the tree. Because the chipboard was not especially thick, I didn’t want to drill into it and risk the integrity. I used a heavy duty wrapped wire similar to this one. I didn’t want to make an entire loop as I wanted to be able to wire it as I needed onto the tree, so I glued one end onto the back of the peace sign using my hot glue gun. I held the wire in place, pressing down, until the glue cooled to ensure that it stayed in place.
Using the end of the wire, I was able to loosely wire it into my tree at the top. If you look closely in the image below, you can see the brown wire wrapping around the top of my tree.
Once I had the banner and the topper created, the rest of the tree sort of fell into place. I decided to keep it neutral with whites, golds, silvers, and white fringe. 
Over the years, I’ve done many different trees. We always have a family tree, but this vintage flocked tree I found at a flea market has been “my tree” from the day I brought it home. This year’s version is my absolute favorite, hands down. And yes, I actually do have gifts wrapped… I usually am so behind, but not this year. All of my paper is from Target and the kids and I picked it out together.
Last year was the first time that I used fringe on my tree as garland and I loved it so much I repeated that idea this year.
I always crash much earlier than Chris, so I have the luxury of falling asleep each night with the tree glowing and beautiful. It’s one of my favorite things about having a tree in our room.
Now be sure to visit the other ladies to see what they’ve created for Peace, Love and DIY here: Charlotte, Corinna, Tania. I enjoyed making my peace sign tree topper!
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