I recently ordered cabinets and they were shipped to me on a pallet, and I kept it just in case I could think of a way to upcycle it instead of throwing it away.

My mom sent me picture the other day of a pallet tree, and I just had to try making one for Christmas! You can make two trees from one pallet. Geometry for the win!

What you'll need:

• (1) wooden pallet
• (48) 3" screws
• (30) linear feet of 2x4's
• (2) 6" or larger c-clamps or bar clamps
• jig saw or circular saw
• drill with phillips screwdriver bit
• crow bar
• hammer

• decorations of your choice (paint, ornaments, garland, lights, topper, etc.)
• staple gun - if you want to add lights and garland
• paint and brush - if you want to paint your tree 

Okay, so let's get started with the steps I took to make these crafty Christmas trees.

1. Remove all screws from the face of your pallet. Mine had two pieces of wood attached to it to keep the cabinets in place during the shipping process.

2. Draw two lines on the face of the pallet as shown in the photo above.

3. Saw the boards where you drew your lines. I chose to use a jig saw. A circular saw would work, I suppose, but the jig saw was easier to handle.

4. Turn the newly sawn pallet over.
   
5. Remove the slats from the back of the pallet with a crow bar and/or a hammer. You can complete this step before sawing, but I chose to do it after.
   
6. After the back slats are removed, you'll have three separate triangular pieces. One already looks like a tree without a trunk. The other two will need to be attached together. Lay the two smaller triangular pieces face down with their "spines/trunks" touching.
   
7. Align the two pallet pieces so that the slats are as aligned with each other as possible. My pallet's slats were a little off, so they didn't line up exactly, but that didn't really matter after adding paint and decorations.
   
8. Once aligned, clamp the two pieces together to prevent any movement when you attach them with screws. If the "spines/trunks" are bowed, clamping them together will also help with straightening them out.
   
9. Attach the two halves together. I used 3-inch screws because that's what I already had on hand.
   
10. Next, you're going to saw the base pieces. You'll need about 30' of 2x4's all together to make bases for both trees.

11. Saw the 2x4's into (8) 24" long and (4) 36" pieces. I used a miter saw, but you can use pretty much any type of saw to accomplish this. 

12. Next, attach two 36" 2x4's to each side of the "spine/trunk" of the tree. I left about 10" of trunk to attach the other cross base pieces, which we will do in the next step. Again, I used 3-inch screws for this.
    
13. There will be a gap between the two 36" pieces at the bottom of the tree trunk. You will need 1 or 2 (depending on which tree your working on) approximately 6" long 2x4 pieces to fill the gap. You may have to loosen a screw or two to squeeze the 6" piece(s) between the two "trunk" 2x4's. Use 3-inch screws to attach the 2x4's together that the bottom.

14. Attach (4) 24" 2x4's to the "trunk" of the tree. They should form a structure similar to the photo above, but with the trunk in the middle of course.

Now you should have two trees that stand up on their own!



You can add any decorations you like, but I chose to paint them green, staple on lights, then add garland and ornaments. Oh, and I added a star!

We placed the trees on each side of our front yard, so the lights had to be for outdoor use. The hardest part was finding a star to attach to the tops that was meant for outdoor use. So hard that we couldn't find any and just used glitter-covered stars instead.

I hope you enjoy the process of this DIY Christmas project. If you'd like to see more of my projects, check out @ericvandykeart on Instagram. Feel free to DM me there if you have questions!