Organize Countertops With A Vintage-Inspired Dollar Tree Holiday DIY

You can end up collecting a lot of holiday decor and trinkets over the years, from your childhood handmade ornaments to vintage collectibles from Christkindlmarkets past. Displaying and organizing all of it can be a pain, but this simple yet timeless DIY may be what you've been looking for this holiday season. 

This sweet display shelf, stained a warm hue, seems straight out of the 1990s, and it might be the answer you need to help organize all your holiday knickknacks this season. Plus, it utilizes some great decorating tips for Christmas on a budget by employing low-cost items from Dollar Tree. With a simple shelf, you can better organize your countertops by using vertical space to create a more polished look.

You'll need a few items from Dollar Tree, including a package of Crafters Square Wood Beads, two Cooking Concepts Bamboo Cutting Boards, and a pack of Crafters Square Wooden Peg Dolls. Along with those Dollar Tree items, you will also need wood stain to give your finished product a little patina. For assembly, have a glue gun handy for easy clean-up, although wood glue will also work for this project. While you can use other cutting boards, such as thrifted ones, the Dollar Tree option is a compact size that works well for the final product.

Once you have your craft items gathered, this DIY shelf comes together quickly. Begin by gluing wood beads along the edge of one cutting board, ensuring that each bead is touching the one next to it. Go around the entire edge of the board. Then, glue the second cutting board on top of the beads, sandwiching them together securely. Using wooden peg doll pieces, attach "feet" to all four corners of one of the cutting boards. Larger beads will also work here as feet but may make the shelf a little shorter.

You can finish the entire piece with wood stain for a more aged, vintage look. Double-check that everything is fully glued in place before adding stain. Make your wait go by quickly by dreaming up dozens of miniature shelfie ideas to display your favorite accessories with style for the holidays. Place this DIY wood shelf on your countertops to make organizing and celebrating your Christmas decor easier. Perhaps you have a sizable holiday mug collection to display, or you want to create a mini hot cocoa station.

Also, it could be fun to upgrade this vintage-inspired DIY with a touch of festive color. Although plain stain allows you to repurpose this display shelf beyond the holidays, you can choose to color the beads red and green before gluing them to the cutting boards, or you can paint the entire shelf. And if after making one (or two!) of these vintage shelves, you realize you don't have enough items to display, keep in mind that there are many valuable vintage Christmas items to look for at thrift stores that would look amazing displayed on top!