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The Junk Parlor

How to Turn Vintage Bingo Cards into Christmas Trees

How to turn vintage bingo cards into Christmas trees. An easy bingo card upcycle project that makes great vintage holiday decor.

Finished Christmas trees made from cut bingo cards.

I saved a pin a long time ago with the idea of turning vintage bingo cards into trees and then guess what . . . I had no bingo cards! Finally, years later I finally had some bingo cards in my stash, I knew this DIY would be the perfect way to use some of them.

When I pin ideas from Pinterest, I don’t go and read the tutorials. I find items in my stash that are similar and then jump in and try to make the same thing! If you want to hear me problem solve this and make bingo card trees along with me, watch my live video:

Supplies

Bingo Cards

-A Base such as an old knob, a wooden spool, log disc, flower frogs, wood blocks

-Scissors

-Pencil/Small Dowel

-Pen

-Craft Glue Stick

-Hot Glue Gun & Glue

-Topper of your choice

Bingo Cards

Any vintage bingo cards will work! In my opinion, it is going to be an easier project if you have thinner bingo cards. They just are easier to work with. If you don’t have bingo cards, maybe you have some vintage cards or postcards that you can pair together! There are lots of ways you could make your collected ephemera work for this project!

What is ephemera? Ephemera is written or printed items that are collectible that were initially intended to be discarded. Vintage cards, book pages, sheet music, bingo cards, paper advertising, newspapers, postcards, etc.

For other ephemera projects try my Sheet Music Wreath, or a Decoupage Clipboard.

Bases

There are a lot of different options: wood spools, wood knobs, wood blocks, log discs, flower frogs. It will all depend on the size of your bingo cards and what you have available. 

block, flower frog, spool and knobs as possible tree bases.

To connect the tree to your base, you will need something to serve as a “tree trunk”. I first thought of using a dowel rod, but I didn’t have any. What could I use instead of a dowel rod? Pencils! I have tons of pencils floating around and after checking it out, I realized that my pencils were the perfect size to fit into my wood spools. So that became an obvious choice for my base. Another thing you need to do is make sure that your pencil is tall enough for your bingo cards and to go into the base.

Embellishments

This is, of course, optional. You can leave the top of your tree plain if you want to. Really any little thing you have that you want to add as a star will work. Consider using vintage jewelry, a tiny bell, maybe cut out a little star from one of your bingo cards. You get the idea!

Possible tree toppers, brooches, bells, jewelry pieces

Process

The first thing that I did was use my ruler and a pencil to create a tree outline. You can free hand it or print one off to trace, whichever you are most comfortable doing. I did my sketching on the back of the bingo card. 

Glue

Glue two bingo cards back to back so all sides of the tree will look good. To save myself some time, I only put glue on the parts of the card that I knew would be cut out. I used a craft glue glue stick instead of hot glue because when hot glue sets up, it is often raised or bumpy. I wanted to be sure that all the peaks of my tree were stuck together. As you are gluing your bingo cards, make sure you pay attention and get them all glued in the same direction! 

Cut Your Trees Out

Once I had my bingo cards stuck together and a tree template made, I used it to trace around. I used a pen to trace, it won’t be major if you can see the lines since you will be cutting it out. This is the reason that I said thinner bingo cards are easier. With the thinner bingo cards, it is much easier to cut through them when they are doubled up! 

Finished bingo card trees.

We will be cutting the trees in half later, so remember to be careful near the top of the trees. Try not to cut into the sides too far as you are cutting around the branch areas. If you cut over too far, it could fall apart when you cut the tree in half. Take your time at the top!

You will need to make a bunch of these trees and then cut them in half right down the middle! The easy way to do this is to cut the first one in half and then use it as a guide for the rest!

Assembling the Trees

After all of your tree parts are made, it is time to glue them to the pencil. Since the pencil has 6 little sections, you will either add three or six tree pieces to the pencil. Using a hot glue gun, run a slim line of hot glue down the pencil and then hold the bingo card tree piece in place to let it set up. This won’t take long! When you are gluing, don’t get carried away with the hot glue gun, you don’t want a bunch of excess glue making your project look sloppy.

Up close of a finished bingo card tree with a knob as a base.

Finishing Touches

After I finished gluing, I poked my pencil into the wooden spool to complete my tree. If your pencil has an eraser, it works well for stabbing items into as a topper. Especially if you are using a piece of vintage jewelry! For my tree topper, I ended up gluing on a little bell. If you want a little more dazzle to your trees, you could run a line of glue between your bingo card pieces and sprinkle glitter!

Birds eye view of tree

Join me daily on Facebook for a new 25 days of DIY projects! There will be a project every day leading up to Christmas! Have a look around my blog for past 25 Days of Christmas DIY projects, I have plenty of inspiration for you from this year and years past!

Bingo Card Christmas Tree

Using vintage bingo cards, something such as a pencil for a trunk and a spool as a base, we will create a Christmas Tree.
Prep Time10 minutes
Active Time20 minutes
Course: Craft
Cuisine: Vintage
Keyword: Bingo Card, Christmas Tree
Yield: 1 tree
Cost: $10

Equipment

  • 1 Pair of Scissors
  • 1 Pen for tracing
  • 1 Glue Stick
  • 1 Glue gun with glue sticks

Materials

  • 4 individual bingo cards
  • 1 piece base choice of spool, knob, flower frog, alphabet block, log slice
  • 1 piece embellishment for tree topper choice of bell, star, jewel
  • 1 pencil trunk dowel rod could also be used

Instructions

  • Make a tree template
  • Glue bingo cards together back to back, make sure they are positioned the same way
  • Trace around your tree template on bingo cards
  • Cut out bingo card trees
  • Cut bingo card trees in half
  • Glue bingo card pieces to pencil, one tree piece per pencil section
  • Secure bingo card tree into selected base
  • Glue on selected embellishment for tree topper

Notes

*be sure to glue the bingo cards together back to back, facing the same direction.  You do not want one to be upside-down 

If you love trees and DIY like I do, get inspired by my Chippy Ceiling Tin Christmas Tree DIY or my Hide Stretcher Tree DIY!

Do you love decorating outside of your home for winter too? Create a Winter Planter with me!

This post may contain affiliate links for the products I use and recommend. I am not paid to promote these products. If you purchase using my affiliate links, I could make a small commission at no charge to you.

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Hi, I’m Brooke. Welcome to The Junk Parlor.

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