Christmas Village Display Idea with a Christmas Tree Shaped Shelf

See a simple Christmas village display idea with a DIY Christmas tree shaped shelf made from scrap wood.

My husband has been collecting Christmas Village sets since he was a small boy. He’s always loved them. Needless to say, we have many sentimental Christmas village sets around here and there is no way to display them all on one table.

I didn’t want to spend any money buying something to set them on. That being said, I wanted one designated area to display them… and NOT my tv stand or console table (which I’ve used previously).

I decided I had enough random scrap wood to try to build a simple Christmas tree shaped shelf to sit at least a few of the sets on. This could work!

I gathered up my scrap supplies and got to planning my DIY display shelf.

Disclosure; this post contains affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. This does not affect the price you pay. This disclosure statement refers to the rest of the amazon links and other affiliate links in this post.

materials:

• miter saw
• gloves
• safety glasses
• pencil
• ruler
• wood glue
• impact drill
• wood screws (I used these deck screws, but wood screws are just fine too)
• unfinished pine board 1″ by 12″ by 5′
• unfinished pine board 1″ by 12″ by 4′
• unfinished pine board 1″ by 12″ by 3′ 6″
• 2′ by 4′ by 8′ lumbar used for the legs (6 5″ boards cut) and for the supports in between shelves
• 1′ by 4′ by 12′ lumbar used for upside down V support
• paint of choice
• white snow batting

How to build a simple Christmas Village display shelf in the shape of a Christmas tree

The first thing I did was cut my scrap unfinished pine board down to three staggered widths. The longest piece was 5′ long so I left that size as is. I cut the next board down to 4′ and then the third board to 3′ 6″.

Like I said earlier, this is scrap wood so it’s not in the best shape but it’s still usable.

I cleaned the wood with soapy water and let it sit in the sun to dry (hence the shadows on the picture above).

Next I laid the shelves on the ground to get a visual of how it would look.

You can see I wanted it to have the shape of a Christmas tree where the longest shelf is at the bottom and shortest shelf at the top.

Next I cut the legs for the base shelf. I wanted to keep the legs as simple as I could but still sturdy. I opted to cut six 5″ long wood pieces from a 2 by 4.

Next I turned the base shelf over and glued the six legs on the bottom of the shelf with wood glue.

You don’t have to use the wood glue, I just wanted to secure the legs to the shelf before I flipped it over and drilled the screws in.

I flipped the shelf over when the wood glue was partially dry and used deck screws (you can use wood screws) to secure two screws the each leg.

Now that the base level was complete, it was time to attach the next two levels.

Once again I laid out the shelves to get an idea of how to attach them together. I opted to lay two 1 by 4’s at an angle to make the shape of a Christmas tree and to attach the shelves together with.

In order to figure out how to cut the perfect angle, I followed this YouTube video.

Voila!

I attached two screws to each side of both shelves in the 1 by 4’s.

In order to make sure the top two shelves were stable, I cut two 2 by 4’s to fit on the back side of each shelf.

Last step; to paint! I used Rust-Oleum paint and primer spray paint to coat the legs and support beams. I left the shelf tops unpainted because I knew I would be covering them in fake snow.

Once the shelf was dry, I added white snow batting to the tops of each shelf.

The last thing to do was add the Christmas village!

Christmas village display idea

I’m so pleased with how it turned out!

This shelf makes it easy to display an entire set of Christmas village decor. Also, when the holidays are over, I can always reuse the shelf for something else!

What do y’all think? Could you create your own DIY Christmas village shelf? I’m so pleased that I did and now I have somewhere to display it. Don’t leave without checking out more of our Christmas DIYs.

If you enjoyed this easy DIY shelf built with scrap wood, you might like a few more below:

DIY X table from scrap wood

How to make a rope shelf

DIY Bathroom shelves with Prism Shelf brackets

Lindsey**