Make Pretty, Light Up Wooden Presents for Your Porch

$30
4 Hours
Medium
These wooden presents were pretty simple to make. They are welcoming, festive, unique and brighten up my porch. I made them by hand in my garage with furring strips and plywood. I used my nail gun and liquid nails to fasten the corners. Each one has it's own style replicating coordinating "wrapping paper", so to speak. When I start a project, I only have a vision in my mind about what I think I want and just start creating. I try to keep it simple and not too time consuming. I have to be flexible,as sometimes I have to go with what my skill level allows and how much time I am willing to give to the over all adventure. This time - my vision worked out - even better than I hoped.
The trio of presents lights up at night.
During the day they are a bright white with colorful ribbon embellished with faux and real holly berries.
I chose the designs for each by using what I had on hand to create them - dremel, drill, saws, nail gun, staple gun and left over chicken wire.
This "polka dot" box is the prettiest at night. I used a drill bit to make randomly spaced holes all over the box. They coincidentally ended up the right size for the twinkle lights to poke through each and every hole.
A tree was cut out with a dremel tool on this one. Freehand draw the shape you like first in pencil. I chose to only cut the front side and just etched the tree shapes on the other three sides, again, using the dremel.
I chose burlap ribbon in two different styles to make them festive and burlap is a durable outdoor fabric.
All tied a little differently on top.
Bows and berries.
Cutting down four equal size sheets of 1/4 inch plywood and attaching the edges with liquid nails and the nail gun was all I needed to do for the "polka dot" box. The inside has two wood squares to attach the panels to.
I drilled random holes all over and painted it white. I calked the seams so my lights would not show through the 'imperfect' corners.
I used a table saw and a miter saw to make all the cuts. The two square frames went on the outside of this box...built in an opposite style as the"polka dot" boxt.
50 count white strand twinkle lights are in each one. I find that attaching chicken wire with a staple gun is the easiest way.
This is a photo of the box making process. To be honest...none of them are perfectly square but appear that way. :) The chicken wire box is rectangle, only because I didn't have enough wire for it to be any larger.
Down to Earth Holly
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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  • Jane Gerber Jane Gerber on Dec 08, 2014
    Thank you @Down to Earth Holly for your really cute ideas!
  • Jolene Draper Jolene Draper on Jul 04, 2018

    Absolutely love it! I would just like to use some battery operated led lights so I don’t need to run electric to it.

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