Crafting Christmas Deer Decor: a Thrift Store Find

There is nothing better than the best thrift store finds, am I right? Creating Christmas deer decor with items from a thrift store is easier than you may think – and a lot of fun to put together!

Thrifted wooden reindeer decorated with crackle paint and ribbon.

Crafting Adorable Deer Decor

If you’re new to Sustain My Craft Habit, we love making elegant and beautiful crafts and decor- by upcycling! We take nature or thrift store finds and turn them into something better than they were before. Just like we did with this adorable deer decor.

This reindeer was a boring old wood stained thrift store find that I found in the middle of July. (Nothing like Christmas in July, eh?) I said I wasn’t going to do anything too Christmasy, but then my mom pulled this out (she had found it for $2.50) and it was too good not to use!

The best part about upcycling Christmas decor is that it is outrageously cheap at thrift stores- and usually, it does not need more than a bit of paint to turn it into something new! We did cackle with this one, so we used white paint as well as glue to give it a different type of look.

Join our crafting community to find more nature-inspired DIYs and upcycled craft ideas. It feels good to repurpose, upcycle and create with nature!

Materials Needed

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Wood reindeer (we found ours at a thrift store)
Chalky white paint (in any colors you choose)
Paint brushes
White or clear school glue such as Elmer’s
large ribbon

Side view of thrifted wooden reindeer decorated with crackle paint and ribbon.

How to Craft with a Christmas Deer Decor

I shared the tutorial for this crackled thrift store wood reindeer on a Facebook Live which you can catch here. All of the step by step instructions can be found in the video or you can follow the photo tutorial on this post where we show how to crackle paint finish with school glue.

Thrifted wooden reindeer decorated alongside Christmas decor on a mantle.

Now that it’s finished, it’s part of my sister’s holiday mantle along with the decked out dollar store garland and gorgeous large DIY pinecone wreath our eco-friendly Christmas stockings.

More Crackle Crafts

How did your Christmas deer decor turn out? Make sure to show it off to us! Tag us on Facebook or Instagram– we can’t wait to see it!

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