Have you ever made tree branch Christmas decorations? I have a few natural elements that I used to make cute Christmas decorations! These are crafting while camping projects! I went buddy camping with cousin Terry, and we had a sunny (not too cold) day for Christmas Crafting!
This meant I had to do some prep before I left home. I showed you these pinecones when I share my faux enamelware buckets. They are HUGE!
You never know what might be hiding inside your pinecones, so it’s best to bake them. I put them in a warm oven on a cookie sheet for 45 minutes.
While the pinecones were baking, I gathered some small logs from my stash of firewood. Always use extreme caution when you are cutting something very small on the compound miter saw. I release the trigger as soon as I have made my cut, and allow the blade to stop. It takes longer this way, but you don’t have pieces flying around and hitting the blade while it’s moving!
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For yet another project, I cut a few pieces out of matching logs. First I cut the angle, sliding the compound miter saw all the way to the left (more than 45°). Then I cut it to length.
After all of that, I gathered paint, pom poms, my new Ryobi glue gun and other random bits and pieces to take camping with me.
Natural Elements for Tree Branch Christmas Decor
This is our setup for crafting while camping. With the shorter days, the sun sets early—so we had to get started before lunch. Can you see all the paint, and the glue gun?
Let’s see what we made . . .
Pinecones as Christmas Trees
While going through my firewood, I found some really small branches, and cut them for tree trunks!
I found it was easier to paint the pinecones with the little trunk hot glued on the bottom.
Wood Slice Snowman
Aren’t the pinecone Christmas trees perfect to compliment Terry’s adorable wood slice snowman? His cute little carrot nose is compliments of a knot on the wood slice. She added small pieces of bark for his earmuffs, and pinecone pieces for his feet to help him stand up! I love how he turned out, don’t you?
Santa Logs
Ready for more tree branch Christmas decorations? Have you ever seen a Santa log? They’re all over the internet, definitely not an original project! I used painters tape to separate the red had and white beard.
Easy Santa Logs—Just paint red and white, add a pom pom nose and a white pom pom for the stocking cap! Black paint on the tip of a broad paint brush was used for his eyes.
After showing them to Terry, she suggested I add some FLUFF for the rim of Santa’s cap. I cut some quilt batting and used hot glue to secure it. I told you I grabbed random things to take with me! 
Tree Branch Christmas Decorations | Wood Slice Wreath
Terry made a wreath out of wood slice by hot gluing one row atop the other.
Have you seen Jamie's cute wood slice ornaments?
She embellished the wood splice wreath with some items leftover from making the scrap wood Christmas ornaments on my last camping trip.
Do you have a favorite?
gail
Hi, there! Iām Gail, the author and mastermind behind My Repurposed Life. Iām obsessed with finding potential in unexpected places and believe that with a little hard work and imagination, any old thing can be made useful againāmyself included! I hope youāll enjoy the journey and pick up a few tools along the wayā¦ literally!
Cheri
It's always amazing to see what else you've created!!!! Such a good use of natural elements that really cost nothing. Great ideas.
Cheri
You make me tired! Can you send me some of that energy???