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Christmas Tree Christmas Card Holder

This easy to make Christmas tree is the perfect display for all your Christmas cards.

How do you display the Christmas cards you receive each year? I have used many methods: hanging on the back of the door, taping to a wall, this wood Christmas card wreath (that didn’t make the move).

But this year I had the idea to make a Christmas card holder to display them all. So I partnered with Kreg Jig and their project plan site, BuildSomething.com, to make one!

Christmas tree shaped Christmas card holder sitting in a corner with Christmas cards displayed on it.

And can I tell you if I would have known just how awesome this would have turned out, I would have made it years earlier.

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The simple design of the tree fits perfectly into our home decor. Plus it was the quickest, easy project made with just 2 inexpensive boards!

Inexpensive Card Holder

To make your own Christmas card holder tree, you only need 2 boards:

  • a 1×2
  • a 2×2

You can of course use any species of wood you want, but you can also just grab inexpensive furring strips for both of these boards. Just make sure to take the time to find the straightest boards you can like I share in this beginners guid to buying lumber.

Using furring strips will make the wood cost for your project around $5! Yes you read that right, just $5 since a 2×2 furring strip runs around $3 and a 1×2 around $2.

Christmas tree shaped Christmas card holder without any Christmas cards in the loop holders in an entryway.

To save myself another trip to the hardware store, I decided to make my own 2×2 and 1×2 from one 2×4 board that I had on hand. The board was easy to rip to size (1 1/2″ x 1 1/2″ for the 2×2 and 3/4″ x 1 1/2″ for the 1×2) on my table saw.

I was able to rip both boards from one 2×4 with leftovers to spare. And the cost of a 2×4 is around $4. Plus it saved me a trip into town, and took less time than it would have to make the drive!

The other cost of this Christmas card holder is the picture holder rings. Luckily these are inexpensive to purchase online. I chose these (slightly more expensive) gold colored ring holders, but you can save a few dollars with these silver ring holders.

So for around $15 I had everything I needed to make this Christmas tree card holder. And guess what… it was super easy to build too!

Close up of the top limbs of the DIY christmas card holder showing the gold ring loop holders.

Easy to Build Card Display

Sometimes simple designs can be complicated to execute. But not this one!

The simple tree shape is put together so fast and easy with the Kreg pocket hole jig. You can use any of their pocket hole jigs to build it. The 300 series is a great budget friendly beginner jig and the K5 is a great repeatable setup (the one I currently use) for drilling lots of pocket holes.

The trickiest part of the setup is cutting the different angles for the design. The trunk is trimmed at a 50 degree angle, the base at 45, and the limbs at 15. But if you can keep those angles straight you are good to go!

Entryway decorated for Christmas with a Santa mailbox and wood Christmas card tree.

I didn’t even use any clamps to hold the pieces together while screwing in the pocket hole screws. The beauty of the design is, it doesn’t matter if things are perfect cause they are not structural (except the base but it was easy to keep things straight).

The entire build (including ripping my boards from the 2×4) took less than 1 hour! And I was ready to start filling it up with Christmas cards.

Close up of a Christmas card inside the ring holder on the Christmas tree card holder.

Since we have not received any Christmas cards yet, I had fun loading it up with all the Christmas cards we have sent in the past. It is fun to look back on the different designs and pictures.

And it reminds me it’s time to design and order this years card too!

Close up of the family Christmas cards displayed in the DIY Christmas card holder.

Christmas Decor DIYs

For more ideas for Christmas, check out these other amazing Christmas DIYs.

Christmas Tree Card Holder Build Plans

If you are ready to make your own simple, inexpensive and easy Christmas card display, I am sharing the plans for free over on BuildSomething.com.

Click here for the complete build plans!

Happy building!

-Kati with picture of blog author Kati
Chrismtas card holder shaped like a Christmas tree with text overlay: Easy DIY Christmas card holder.

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