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Easy DIY Wood Slice Reindeers!

Holiday reindeers are a great project this time of year. Learn how to make DIY reindeers out of slices of logs in this post!

Looking to craft up some holiday decor? What’s better than some easy DIY wood slice reindeers?

These cute guys can welcome all of your holiday guests outside your front door, looking natural and in the holiday spirit!

This is a really fun and easy project and one you can get creative with based on what you can find near your home.

We used logs that we found on the side of the road in our neighborhood and cut them down to the sizes we needed to make wood slice reindeers.

Let’s show you how to make these DIY wood slice reindeers for your holiday decor!

Easy DIY Wood Slice Reindeers! - Charleston Crafted

DIY wood slice reindeer

A DIY wood slice reindeer is a great project that you can do alone or with your family.

The best part about this project is that it almost exclusively uses natural elements and things you can find outside.

We have been using these reindeer now at our house every season for about 7 years and they are still holding strong! We have to replace the twigs sometimes when they break or re-glue on an acorn nose, but they are holding up great.

Here’s how to make these DIY wood slice reindeer!

How to make a wood log reindeer

This project really is super easy. All you need is a couple of small logs and sticks.

You can make as many as you want, but in order to make one reindeer, you need:

If you want to make more than one, simply multiply the amount of materials by that number of reindeer! Here’s our DIY wooden log reindeer plans for you to follow to build one of your own!

Step one: cut logs

I used a handsaw for all these cuts. Obviously, use whatever saw you feel comfortable with

Start out by cutting a medium log into the length of your reindeer. I’d say no more than 12 inches.

Also, cut a very short angled slice off this log as well to serve as your reindeer’s neck.

Next, cut your four legs out of your skinnier sticks. These should be about half the length of your reindeer’s body.

Finally, cut a slice of the larger log that is about half the length of the body in order to serve as the head.

Easy DIY Wood Slice Reindeers! - Charleston Crafted

Step two: attach legs to body

Use a drill bit matching the size of your dowel screws to drill a hole into one end of each of the legs. Then screw in your dowel screws. You’ll probably need pliers for that as they are tough to do with your fingers.

Easy DIY Wood Slice Reindeers! - Charleston Crafted

Next, drill four holes in the underside of the body log and screw your legs into the body.

These holes should align with each other and be mostly on the bottom of the log, but angled slightly out.

Take the legs with the dowels and twist each of them into the four holes in the body.

Step three: Attach head to body

That’s the base, now, do the same thing with the angled cut of wood on the front of the body and attach it on top of the body near the front to act as a neck.

Finally, do the same thing to attach the head piece to the neck.

Easy DIY Wood Slice Reindeers! - Charleston Crafted

Step four: accessorize your DIY wood slice reindeer

Finally, accessorize! We used googly eyes, acorns for noses and pinecones for tails.

Easy DIY Wood Slice Reindeers! - Charleston Crafted

Drill two small holes near the top of the head and insert your twigs to serve as antlers.

Easy DIY Wood Slice Reindeers! - Charleston Crafted

These easy DIY wood slice reindeers are super simple and take about 30 minutes to make. They are the perfect addition to our holiday decor and will make an appearance every year!

We hope that our DIY wooden log reindeer plans were helpful to make your own!

Before you go…

Check out some of our other wooden Christmas projects!

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