DIY $44 Faux Olive Tree
MAN OH MAN, I have been drooling over all the faux olive trees I’ve been seeing in stores and online when I scroll lately! They are so trendy right now, but also hold such elegance and simplicity to them making them a timeless touch of nature for your home.
Every time I saw one I liked, I immediately checked the price tag or redirected to the website where it was from. To my disappointment, and my wallet’s relief, I never ended up purchasing any because of the price. These trees were ranging from $50-95 for short ones and $100-$400 for taller ones (about 6 ft). Sure, there were a few that I found on the cheaper side, but I felt they looked really fake and plastic-ey so I didn’t want to spend my money on that. So I went on feeling bummed out every time I noticed one on Instagram, just wishing I had one of my own.
That was until I watched this video by Anna Sofia on her Fia Garcia DIY Youtube channel one morning. In this video, she DIYs her very own faux olive tree from scratch. She makes her own concrete base for it, found her own very large stick from outside, and then attached her own leaves/branches to the top portion to make a whispy and airy tree. Watching this innovation left me so inspired! All of a sudden things started to click for me, and I knew I could get that olive tree for myself. But let’s face reality, we are stuck in this darkness we call winter here in Wisconsin, so finding my own large branch amidst the 2 feet of snow was nearly impossible and I wasn’t going to have a great space to mix my own concrete base.
This is what lead me to the thrift store! I had seen old ivy/ficus trees there all the time and I never thought twice about buying one. I always felt the leaves on them were dusty, plastic-ey, and too green. I was baffled I had never thought, before now, to just buy it for the wooden trunk and base and to remove all the old leaves. I felt like I had a genius moment and I was now on the hunt for the perfect ivy/ficus tree while out thrifting. Then…I went to the West Allis Goodwill on a Monday and saw it…she was the perfect height, had the perfect base, and the best trunk! I just had to have her, except for one issue…someone had the bottom tag to her already. So what did I do? Well, I stalked her in the store for a long time, DUH! I kept anxiously circling back to the furniture area to see if the person put the tag back. Unfortunately, they never did and quite frankly I was too lazy to deal with the cashier calling over the intercom to see if a person was holding the tag. I felt it was the universe telling me there would be a better one out there.
Fast forward 3 days and your girl is back at that same Goodwill. I know I know back in 3 days!? But in my defense, I had to drop something off at our post office and it’s right next door so I couldn’t help myself. HAHA But lo and behold THERE SHE WAS still standing there lonely in the furniture aisle. STILL WITHOUT A TAG ON HER (this time not even the top portion). So I did what any person would do, I squatted down and placed that tree inside my cart, and went to the cash register to ask for a price. The manager looked at me and said “that will be $9.99”. UMMM WHAT?! An entire tree for only $9.99, yes please!
Alright, I have the tree and now the planning process for this DIY began. Since I wasn’t sure which store would be best for olive tree branches I stopped in at 3 stores I figured would have good options. The first being Joanns, this is always my go-to spot for any faux florals/greenery (this is where I bought all my florals/greenery for our wedding). It honestly was perfect timing to do this DIY too because most places have their olive branches out with their spring florals, which Joanns did. Lucky me, they had 30% off all spring florals (making each stem cost $5.59). So I grabbed all that they had since I was unsure how many I’d want and I didn’t want to risk needing more and then them being sold out. Then I went to Hobby Lobby, where I found thicker stems that were more full than the Joanns ones. These olive branches were marked 50% off at the time (making each stem cost $7). Lastly, I stopped at Walmart because I knew they had some during fall time. They still had olive branches in stock so I bought all that they had there too. These stems were much taller than the others but weren’t as full, they were way skinnier (each stem cost $3).
Personal Opinion: Some people might think grabbing all of these branches from each store is a waste of time, but in my opinion, I need to evaluate how they look side by side to know which I’d like to go with. I also think that at the end of the day if you’re swinging into all of these stores and hesitating to buy one you’re wasting time anyway and risking having to go back to the store to purchase, so you might as well buy all the options and return what you don’t need.
After comparison, I felt that the Hobby Lobby stems were the biggest bang for my buck and they were the most authentic looking. The leaves were dark green and the olives were dark hues with subtle variations. Whereas the Joanns ones were a nice shade of green leaves but the olives were very “green olivey” and had speckles all over them. Lastly, the Walmart ones didn’t have enough individual stems on them and the leaves were bright green.
STEP 1: Remove all the old leaves from the thrifted tree. These were very easy to pull off each branch on the thrifted tree I purchased.
STEP 2: Take a wire cutter (I used the Masterforce 6” diagonal pliers from Menards) and snip off the individual stems from the main stem of the olive branch. This will make a bunch of smaller stems for you to attach.
STEP 3: Take some floral wire (I bought mine at Walmart in a 26 Gauge Wire) and cut about a 4-inch chunk off. Take the smaller stem you cut off and the 4 inches of wire and lay it on top of an existing empty branch on the tree. Once it’s lined up then wrap the wire around in two spots to secure the small olive branch to the existing branch on your tree. Continue to do this until your tree is filled to the consistency you’d like, some trees have a whimsical airy feeling and some are fuller. I ended up using 5 of the olive tree stems I bought from Hobby Lobby.
STEP 4: Use hot glue in any areas you feel may need it. I only needed to add some to the top stems, otherwise, the wire worked great!
STEP 5: If you used green floral wire (which I did) then you might want to paint over it so it blends in with the branches more. So I mixed up 3 paint colors I already had which were cream, olive green, and burnt orange. This ended up working perfectly to match the stem color of my tree. I used a small paintbrush and casually added some of that shade over the wire so it looked more natural.
THAT’S IT! In those 5 steps, I had a finished faux olive tree that I was super happy with. This DIY (aside from the thrifting part) took me roughly 3 hours to complete which I feel is a huge win!
What I learned from this project: sometimes it really is worth making your own stuff because this hardly took any time and was a fraction of the price brand new.
Suggestions that I have: check out the different stores around you to see which olive branches you like best, they are all a little different. Make sure you are buying them when they are on sale, stores like the ones I listed above, usually run sales on their floral so keep an eye out for that. If they don’t have a sale going on I suggest using the FREE online COUPON at Hobby Lobby that is 40% off one regular priced item. This is something that you can Google while in the store. The first thing that will pop up once you do will be the 40% off coupon. They will always let you use this if it’s a regular-priced item. Joanns also has a rewards program on their app that’s filled with coupons that you can use! It’s always worth looking for coupons.
Leave a comment if you’re planning on trying this (or something similar), or if you have created your own faux plants, or just tell me what you think about this!
