Christmas lawn ornaments are the ideal holiday welding projects since they require a few generally inexpensive materials, while also using very simple welding processes, such as tacking and then making short welds. Whether you own a MIG, TIG, or Stick welder, you will have all of the power you need to make these kinds of welds.
If you’re a beginner, yard art is a perfect place to start. No one will look closely at your welds if you need a little time to experiment with your settings. If you add some lights to your lawn art or paint it, you’ll cover up almost every flaw and imperfection. Need some ideas to get started? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered for holiday welding projects!
Christmas Tree Welding Projects
You can create both small and large Christmas trees for your lawn using a variety of basic materials. For instance, if you have access to a lot of horseshoes, you can arrange them as either a 3-D or 2-D Christmas tree. Horseshoes can be particularly inexpensive and easy to find in certain parts of the country, and once you add some lights and decorations to the frame, passersby may not even notice that you’ve used horseshoes in the first place!
If you’re using horseshoes, you can easily add balls or other ornaments to your Christmas trees when you’re done with them. All of the weld joints also give you plenty of places to weave in lights.
A more traditional Christmas tree welding project for your lawn, such as the one in this Instructable, involves rolled steel bars that you can weld together and bend as needed. Once again, these are simple tack welds that you can then join together without requiring a ton of heat. A grinder or chop saw will help you cut the metal a bit quicker. You can then add tube lighting to the outline of the frame or string lights across.
Reindeer Christmas Lawn Art
Reindeer ornaments provide advanced welders more options than the typical tree project. For instance, welders can use scrap metal and thick tubes to create smaller reindeer lawn ornaments. However, those may not be ideal for adding lights.
A better option may be sheet metal reindeer. You’ll probably want a plasma cutter or cutting torch in order to get cleaner cuts on this project. You can fit the sheet metal together in ways that minimize your welding time, but the cuts will certainly take plenty of time to plan and make. These reindeer can be painted and stand on their own, or they can be outlined with lights.
Christmas Star Welding Project
Another classic lawn welding project for Christmas is a star, You can build a simple cross as a frame in the middle using metal tubing and then build out from there. One welder created a 2 foot by 3 foot star that involved several simple tacks and welds. He created a series of angled supports from the center cross and then added an outer frame for the star.
He mentioned in his project notes that the hardest part wasn’t the welding. Attaching the lights took up the most time, as he had to use a large number of zip ties in order to hold all of the lights in place. The star was eventually used for a nativity scene, but you could aim a little smaller if you want to make a star to attach to your home.