Christmas is here and it’s a great time to make some decorations. Here is a cheap and easy project you can do in a matter of 20 minutes or less using only a jigsaw been some off the shelf pine. This decorative Christmas sled is a great little project that you can use either inside or outside your home.

And follow this link to my Video to see how it is done.

Tools and Materials

Materials for this decorative Christmas sled project are fairly straightforward you’ll need A2 foot piece of 1 by 12 by one inch pine and about 6 feet of one by three pine also. A few nails of screws and some glue as well as paint of your choice. As far as tools you can do this with a hand saw and coping saw or a jigsaw. I used a hand saw to crosscut my pieces and a bandsaw to cut the curves.

And to mark the curves you can either hand draw them or do like I did and use things for around the shop like a 5-gallon bucket lid, peanut butter jar lid, and the paint can.

Layout

Not much to layout laying this Christmas sled which is why I love this little project to layout their Christmas sled first thing you want to do is layout the forward edge of the runners. I used a 5-gallon bucket lid to get the arc. Then I used a peanut butter jar lid to strike the additional small curves. The large curve in front I used a 1-gallon paint can.

Cutting

If you got your layout done grab your jigsaw or bandsaw and cut your curves. After cutting you may need to do a little bit of cleanup with a file to fare the curves.

Routing

The edges all need to be eased. I used a router with a 1/8 inch roundover bit. But you could do the same thing with sandpaper or a file. All you want to do is have the edges nice and soft one because paint sticks better and two because it feels much better when someone picks it up.

Sanding

Now it’s time to hit the whole Christmas sled with sandpaper. Sand all the surfaces starting with 220 grit sandpaper. I used an orbital Sander but this can be done by hand. You only need 220 grit because you’re using surfaced lumber.

Assembly

To assemble this project you’ll need to center the runners on the seat and inset the sides by about an inch. I applied glue and clamped everything to my bench to make sure nothing moved once I had it positioned. Then I drove in three screws per side to hold everything together.

Finishing

Because this Christmas sled is a decorative project I wanted it to look a bit on the old side so I watered down some red paint and wiped it on. Watering this paint down also had the effect of drying it much faster. Now I have to say the red that I chose was 1 I had on hand and I don’t think I actually like it so I may have to go back and get a different paint.

If you don’t want to spend a lot of money on paint you can go to a big box store make your selection and then you get a sample size for about two or three dollars which is more than enough for doing this particular project. Because you’re only going to use about 1/3 of it and about the same amount of water if you do it the way I did it.

The project is done

Well I hope you followed along with this pulled out some wood and some tools and slapped this together. It’s one of those projects you can do in about 15 minutes to 20 minutes plus another 20 to 30 minutes of dry time for the finish. So you could do this on the morning of Christmas Eve and have it ready to go for your Christmas Eve dinner.