How To Make A Wooden Christmas Tree with a Jigsaw, Cricut and a Glowforge

Me and Kim went lumberjacking today and we cut up three different trees using three different tools. A jigsaw, a cricket, and a glowforge. And we'll show you how we did it right now. What is up? Welcome back. Do you like to do a build and a make it? We do too and we have a new video each week. This week we're getting into a little bit of tree trimming. A little bit of seeing the trees through the forest. Getting into some cutting out some tree decor for Christmas. Yes, so this is a short week. This is Thanksgiving week and we're trying to get this video all wrapped up so. And it's Wednesday. So that we can enjoy our Thanksgiving Thursday and then prepare some additional videos on Friday. So this is going to be kind of a, well it originally started out to be a quick project and it's grown a little bit since then so hopefully we can still make it quick. We're going to show you three levels of making tree cutout, Christmas tree cutout home decor. We're going to use a jigsaw, the cricket, and then the glowforge. Yes, so we've had some requests, comments related to making some Christmas trees like our pumpkin ribs. Those were a big seller and they were very cute and they sold a lot at the farmer's market too. So we're going to make our version of Christmas tree ribs, I guess. Standing Christmas trees, but like he said we're going to do three of them. So we'll use the glowforge and we'll offer those available in our store. So if you just want to purchase those and paint them you can do that. But if you want to DIY it yourself we're going to use some cricket chipboard and make a standing set of Christmas trees. Hopefully they stand correctly with the chipboard. And then we're going to try out a new tool. He's going to try out a new tool that he brought up here and it's going to be loud and obnoxious, but it might be cool. It might be something that you'd be willing to try. I'm anxious to see how it works. It was cheap. Found it on Amazon. All right, let's get this project started. Project number one. Step one. We're going to gather all of our supplies. We just needed a piece of white. That's it. Done. Step two. We're going to make all of our cuts. So I found something new that I want to try out. It attaches to a jigsaw. So this piece here allows me to put it on the tabletop and use it like a scroll saw. I should be way better at making my cuts. I am no sawsman so I need all of the help I can get. So I'm going to clamp this to the desk and then run it around like I'm drawing apparently. We'll see. We'll see how it goes. Yes, he really wants a scroll saw and that's like a big, I don't know, I feel like that's a big piece of equipment that we won't use that often. So I haven't, I haven't been like, yeah, go get it. So this, this thing came in the mail, so we will see what it does. And I just attached it to an old black and decker. Look, the sticker's falling off. That thing is old. An old black and decker jigsaw. It was. I think I actually got it at a garage sale like many years ago when I was just starting my wood cutting experiences. So we printed out a template. It's the same template we're going to use in all three designs. I'm not going to cut out the middle. That looks a little too hard. We're just going to cut out the outline. So first we're going to cut out the outline of the paper, trace it onto the board, and test out the new saw. Well, old saw with a new attachment. All right, let's do it. All right, got them all drawn on. I'm going to clamp this jam to the disc. Not too bad. I don't know if it's much better than I do by hand. No, I take that back. This is way better than I do by hand. It looks good. It just needs to sand up some of the corners. It doesn't, this blade's a little fat. It doesn't like those tight corners. That's what I was thinking. It seems like it needs a different blade. Yeah. All right, hold on. We got to do one more thing. Now we got to draw a line down the center so that they can be united. They could be one tree. We'll use a scrap piece of wood. So we're going to cut a slot in the top and a slot in the bottom of the other one, and then interlock them. If all goes well. Yeah, if everything goes as planned. Oh, perfect. Look at that. Oh, that's perfect. A little gappy, but not bad for my first attempt. Yeah, a little gappy. Step three. Now we paint. We're going to use this acrylin in country chic and just give it a quick coat. Yeah, we're just going to paint these white because we're going to paint some others green. So we're just trying to mix it up a little. Mix it up. Let me get that for you. Still a little wet, but. Does it go that way? Yeah, it goes that way. Done. Project number two. Step one. We're going to gather all of our supplies. For this one, we just needed some chipboard. It's like heavy cardstock, like really heavy. One point five millimeter. Some paper and a cricket. Oh, and maybe some mod podge or glue. Yeah, that's it. We're going to use the same pattern and we're going to cut out the same tree using our cricket on this chipboard. This is the cricket brand. Heavy chipboard. See how pretty heavy. Pretty thick. Yeah. Step two. We're going to make all of our cuts. We're going to put this chipboard into the cricket, cut out the tree. It's going to take about 20 passes for each side of this tree and pretty easy. And the deep cut blade, you'll need to use that. Other than that, it's pretty simple. Pretty simple. To change the blade, we'll just open up this little quick change cartridge area, pull out the existing blade. This one, you just line up the grooves, plug it right in there, close up the cartridge, and then it'll double check that it's got the right blade when it starts the cut. Step three. Now we're going to mod podge down the paper on our cutouts. Came right out. Right. And I'm not sure I said this during the filming there, but I did use this blue tape to hold it down to the mat. You'll find sometimes with a heavy chipboard, well, how ironic, I actually used a light grip mat, but it didn't really matter because I taped it down with this blue tape and that really kept it stuck. So I do recommend taping down heavy chipboard because it will tend to shift during cutting. In the app, it did say use a strong grip mat, is that what they call it? Yeah. So maybe not with a light grip and some tape. Well, all of my mats are a mess. I have a bunch of them and I've tried all of the cleaning techniques and they don't really get that sticky for me. So if you guys are watching this and you have a good tip for how to clean your mats, let me know because I have yet to be able to clean them and actually reuse them for other than maybe one use. It didn't get all the way through. I'm just going to cut it out with the X-Acto. One. One. That was it. Paper. It was like a tiny little thin piece of paper. Otherwise it came out okay. The top is a little chewed up. Can you see it? Well, that's because while it was cutting, I was down on the ground looking for the cap to my X-Acto knife here, which I cannot find. And while I was down there, I bumped the extension cord, the power strip. I bumped the power button on the power strip and turned the whole thing off. Oh, in the last pass? Well, it was probably about halfway through, so I had to feed it back in and start again. So one side looks a little rougher than the other because I had to start all over again. All right, so now we're going to mod podge this paper down on these card cutouts. Card cutouts. Oh, and we've got to pay attention, Mike. Half goes here and then half would go here. Yes, Garrett wants to make it super hard. Super cool. Yeah. I was just going to do half and half with one paper and with a coordinating paper, but he actually wants when they come together, he wants the facing sides to have the same paper. So let's see if we can't make that happen. So I think if you just slice it down the middle straight and then line it up down the middle here and then I use the other half on this one. All right. Step four. And now we're going to assemble it. And by assemble it, I just mean like slide it together and then slide it in its base. I said that now I'm having issues. And look how cool this is. We didn't even know how cool we were, but because I slid it right down the middle there, we have half of Santa on one side and half of Santa on the other. It looks great. I think it's really cute. Project number three. Step one. We're going to gather all of our materials. We really just needed some quarter inch MDF, some paint and some paint brushes, right? What else do we need? That is it. We're trying to make this an easy project. The easiest. We had easy, easier, easiest. I say that every time. If you make it to the end, you might be like a certified Kim and Garrett make it arborist. All right, let's head over to the Glowforge. Well, let's get into step two. We're going to make all of our cuts. Let's head over to the Glowforge. So in the same amount of time that it took us to cut out the stuff on the cricket, which turned out to be about 45 minutes, I was able to cut out three sets of trees and a bonus tree. I saw this cut file and I really liked this one, so I can't wait to show it to you. Now this one didn't cut all the way through. Sometimes on the Glowforge, it doesn't really go all the way through, like down at the bottom here. So I'm just going to cut it out with the X-Acto blade. And you're wondering, how did you get that big board in the Glowforge? Well, sometimes if I'm not using the pass-through feature in the application, I still use the pass-through slot. That way I don't have to cut every board down to 20 by 12. I just get it about 20 and I just pass through the slot. Step three. And now we paint again. What's so great about these is that that's all you really have to do. Yeah. If you purchase them from our store. Using these little makeup sponges again. A little dab will do you. We'll send it as a kit and all you have to do is add your favorite paint. We're going to use this Country Chic paint in Fireworks. Fireworks. Yep. That's weird because you'd think fireworks would be like. I know, it's a confusing one, isn't it? This is green. I would think fireworks would be like. Red. Red or orange. Yeah, orange. Must be a story that we don't know. Yeah. Again, we're using this little dabbing technique. I'm going to keep these edges the dark color, that burnt color. I like that clean, crisp look. So I'm just going to use this sponge, this makeup sponge, to dab on the paint. A little makeup. Dab on a little paint makeup. Step four. Now we're going to assemble it. Super easy. You just slide one side under the other side. Make the paint maybe a little thick. Oh no, I see what's wrong. Try that. There you go. There it goes. A little tap. Tap, tap. Tap, tap. Put it in its base. All right, I've decided I couldn't do all three and the fireworks, so I made one a light green. And that is that. That is easy, huh? Easy as pie. All right, what'd you think? Easy, easier, easiest. Which one are you going to do? Yeah. Let me know. Three trees, three trees, three tools. Um, what do I think of them? I don't know. Just, I'm sure that's what you're wondering right now. My feedback. So we're about out of time, so I can't do more with it. But these little trees I think are really cute as a little collection here. The three set here. But I don't like the dark edges, so I would probably paint the edges. So that's my tip to you. I also want to add some lights to them some way. And I'm hoping I'll get a chance to do that. Maybe I'll have that in final shots. And this one's cute. I also think it needs a little something like some ornaments on it. Maybe I can get creative with that one. But this one I like a lot. I love the different papers. It's really cute and it was really simple to do. Yeah, that one is probably the most decorative. Yes. The most detailed. This one's just simple. I mean, it's not bad. But looks like we're about out of time. So if you're not going to see us in the after show, we will see you next week where we'll do it, build it, and make it again. And there are so many to balance. I have so many to choose from. What if I do two? Oh, that one's too light on top. Yeah, this little medium one I'll do. Let's do it this way. No. You don't think so? No. You don't think so? No. Boom. There it is. There it is. There it is. Whoops. There it went.