Red Truck & Christmas Tree - Outdoor Christmas Decor

by Red Cottage Chronicles

2 Materials

Way back in September my husband and I got to talking about our outdoor Christmas decorations. We are quite traditional but wanted to add something different as a focal point. We decided to recreate the classic red truck & christmas tree!

red truck christmas tree outdoor christmas decor, christmas decorations, home decor

And there you have it! An almost life size red truck & Christmas tree! We though about making the tree from plywood as well, but really wanted a free tree. We wrapped the tree in multi-coloured mini lights and centered a clear flood light to light up the display at night!

You can visit the blog to see more!

We started with a 4 x 8 foot sheet of regular plywood. Using an image of a truck as a guide we drew it by hand using the entire sheet of plywood.

We then took the plywood outside and cut out the shape using a jigsaw and lightly sanded the edges. You can see it is just the silhouette of basic pick up truck. Nothing fancy. Took all of 10 minutes to cut it out.

We used mostly left over paint from other projects. Black chalkboard paint for the tires, silver metallic for the hub caps and bumpers, Chalk paint in Linen for the window and lettering. The only paint we bought was a quart of exterior semi-gloss for the body. All the paint details on are the blog.

After the tires were painted, I painted the body in a shade of red called Amazing I painted the emblem I had created using Canva onto the door. In Canva I was able to design it in the size I wanted it to be and then took it to Staples to have it printed. I rubbed the entire back of the image with chalk and then traced the letters onto the truck. Finally I filled the letters in with the linen coloured paint.

Once we allowed the entire thing to dry for 48 hours we brought it outside. We screwed 2 by 3 stakes onto the back centred over each tire allowing about a foot extended down to hammer into the ground. A simple 2 x 4 box was constructed out of some left over lumber to hold the tree, which we used some bungee cords to secure it. Not pretty from the back, but it can't see it from the street!