How to Make Wood Slice Art

It’s no secret that I love using elements of nature in our home, and today I’m sharing how to make wood slice art, which just so happens to be one of my favorite DIY art projects to date!

If you follow me on Instagram you may remember this photo I shared a while back of a tree that fell in our backyard.

Thanks to a little upcycling, this project was made using some of the fallen branches from that tree.  The tree that fell was actually from our neighbor’s yard so my husband had asked if we could keep some of the wood. We were not home when they were doing the cleanup and repairing the fence so they only left a few branches for us to use, but it was more than enough for the art project I’ve been wanting to finish for quite some time now.

Some of you may already know this, but we are renting and our lease is up in a few months. I’ve always painted every apartment/home we rented but this time I decided just to keep them beige. In doing so I realized that the natural wood slices didn’t pop as much as I wanted and the wall would look a little to bleh for us. So instead I decided to incorporate some of the other colors in the dining room into the wood slices.

How to Make Wood Slice Art

I was able to create this framed wall art using leftover materials we had available, along with some fallen branches in our backyard. So depending on what you have available and the size you want to create, this could be a free or very low-cost project! I mention the tools I used for this project, but you can also just use what you have available, and if you don’t have branches or a saw, you can purchase wood slices from craft stores, Etsy or Amazon.

You could also have your wood slices go over the edge of the wood and skip the frame if you want. I’ll list the general items I used, but of course, you can customize the amount, size and colors to match your style and home.

• Plywood
• Wood Slices
• Paint
• Rubb’n Buff
• Foam Brushes
• 220 Grit Sandpaper
• Stain
• Heavy Duty Glue
•  Wood for Frame {I used 1 x 4’s}
• Painters’ Tape
• Heavy Duty Picture Hanging Hardware
• Tools Used:
• Ryobi Compound Miter Saw
• Ryobi Airstrike Nail Gun
• Ryobi Drill
• Kreg Jig

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I had some plywood left over from my large DIY chalkboard and used that as the back of my wall art. You could use any size wood or canvas as your backdrop.

I knew there would likely be some small gaps in between the wood slices, so I decided to stain the plywood so the background wouldn’t stand out as much. I just used some dark walnut stain:

Once the plywood was stained I created a super simple frame made with 45-degree angles. This frame can easily be made using the Kreg Jig if you have one.

I stained the frame using a mixture of American Walnut and Dark Walnut. Once the plywood and frame were stained I moved on to the wood slices…

The first thing I did was slice up some of the branches using our Ryobi compound miter saw, creating a variety of sizes. Afterward, I baked them in the oven on low for about 20-30 minutes. This kills any critters {eeeew} and dries them out.

After that, I quickly went over the tops of the wood slices with 220 grit sandpaper. This was just to smooth them out a bit and make the paint go on easier.

I then picked out a few different paint colors (a mix of acrylic and craft paints) and poured a little bit out on a plate covered with foil (for easy clean up). I used navy, turquoise, white and yellow. The yellow actually didn’t have enough contrast so I didn’t use much of it, and later went over those painted sections with some gold rub in buff.

I also used some green spray paint on some of the wood slices so that some of the wood slices would tie into our DIY Mason Jar Chandelier.

Once I had my paint and foam brushes ready I started taping off sections of the wood slices and then painting the slices. I would place one or two pieces of tape on the slice to create geometric shapes and then painted in the empty spaces.

Once the slices were dry (within 10 minutes) I would remove the tape and then tape off another section of the wood slices to add another section of paint.

I continued to do this until I had a variety of colors and patterns on the slices.

Once my slices were all painted and dry I placed them on top of the plywood to figure out where I wanted each piece to go.

Since I was adding a frame to the plywood I drew a border 1 inches from the edge that I would want my wood slices to stay within. This is because I wanted to use my nailgun to attach the frame to the plywood.

You could always attach your frame and then glue the slices inside, but I decided to glue them down first. Before I glued them down I did place the frame on top to make sure everything lined up correctly though.

When I had all of my wood slices laid out how I wanted, I then used my glue gun on the high setting and began gluing the slices down one at a time.

Tip: Don’t use a glue gun.

I admit that I used the glue gun because I was impatient and wanted instant gratification, but I would recommend using something else like Liquid Nails, epoxy, wood glue, Super Glue, etc. It’s nice if you can use glue that allows a little more time to move the slices around if necessary, and will make them more permanent once dry.

The glue gun did work really great initially, but over time a few slices fell off and I had to superglue them back on.

I then attached the frame using our Ryobi Airstrike and added some heavy duty picture hanging hardware with our drill.

After it was all finished I took it outside and gave it a couple of coats of clear acrylic sealer. By the way, if you use spray paint I highly recommend getting the Rust-Oleum spray can grip! It makes spray painting anything soooooooo much easier and sprays more evenly too. I <3 that thing!

Here is my wood slice art all finished and hung up in our dining room:

I really love how simple and rustic it is and how it brings out some of the other colors in our dining room, like my painted rug and emerald chandelier.

Oh, and of course the leftover painted wood slices are being used for coasters.

Here’s an updated photo of the wood slice art in the office nook of our bedroom:

What creative ways have you reimagined branches or wood slices?