Chalk Paint / Christmas / Decoupage / DIY / Holiday Crafting / Home Decor / Paint

Retro Branch Buck

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I love all the Faux Deer Mounts going around, so I decided to give you my take on them. I started with a faux gold Christmas deer from Michaels I’ve had for a while and did some taxidermy on him. To be honest this was the project that almost wasn’t. I had high hopes of changing his own antlers into a great rack! Well that was a project fail, so not to be defeated I headed outside to the backyard for inspiration. This is what I came up with! Here’s how I did it~

Materials: Mod Podge, striped retro fabric, wood plaque, Faux Christmas Deer, random branches, White Chalk Paint, rotary cutter and mat, scissors, sharp bread knife, poster board, picture hanging hardware, hot glue and gun.

Cut the head and shoulders off of your deer at and angle with a sharp bread knife. Cut around the base of the antlers to loosen the paper mache, then pull the antlers off. I had planned on making the antlers bigger using news paper and Mod Podge but it just wouldn’t hold and smooth out like I wanted. Hence the backyard excursion.

Take your poster board and rotary cutter and make a guide for your fabric for the plaque. Cut out your fabric. (Note: beware of striped fabric and decoupage: very tough to get the stripes the lay straight, the fabric stretches. Another choice in fabric would be better or maybe use cardstock instead.) Paint your plaque and deer head with White Chalk Paint, see my recipe below. Let them dry, then decoupage the fabric with Mod Podge to the plaque. Let dry. Turn the plaque over and add your picture hanging hardware.

I placed the deer head on a large cup to handle it better. Next I went out in the backyard and looked around for two large branches that would flow together. Stick a branch into an antler hole and arrange like you want it, then fill the hole with hot glue to hold it. They are heavy so hold them for a few minutes until they dry. This was amazing easy, thank goodness. Then hot glue your deer head to the plaque. I added silver retro looking branches I hot glued  into a wreath around his neck. And that’s it! He is so funky and will go great with my Christmas decor. I may change the fabric after Christmas so I can leave him up all year. Not bad for an almost project fail.

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38 thoughts on “Retro Branch Buck”

  1. What a great idea!! We have a real deer head mounted in our outdoor kitchen only because I couldn’t bring myself to mounting it inside the house BUT I could do one like yours!! I am actually a deer lover….herds of them graze everyday in and around our property. Love them until they get into my flowers! :-(
    ~~~rhonda~~~

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  28. This is cute! I have two little trees that had to be cut waiting outside my back door. Still deciding what to do with them. I was thinking of painting them, mounting them in a pot, and decorating them each season–Easter, Christmas, Halloween, etc. I wonder if I could just skip the deer, but somehow mount them from the wall in a similar way.

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