The Alphabet Train Track Tree • Grillo Designs

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Over the months, my son had built up quite a collection of train tracks but then for some reason suddenly lost interest in them! For a long time, they stayed packed away in our storage bedroom.

The idea of placing train tracks on a wall was inspired by two photos I had seen on Pinterest. The first being a photo from MOMMO DESIGN. Originally I had wanted to create a tree out of MDF wood and used it as a bookshelf, but scrapped the idea when I realised it would require a lot of work and planning. This is what I ended up with!

Materials used to make this Track Tree:

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Blu-tack or you can even use command strips
3 x IKEA LILLABO train tracks. You can also browse places like eBay, by searching ‘wooden train tracks‘ if you are looking for certain parts that you don’t have
Wooden alphabet letters. I actually bought mine as a set from a UK supplier on eBay, but he no longer sells them. However, a similar set can be found on Amazon here.
Assorted decoupage paper, acrylic paint, and fabric remnants to decorate letters
Modpodge glue

How to:

These are the four main tracks I used to create the tree shape. As long as you have a variety of these 4 pieces, it’s all plain sailing from here.

Bridge tracks
Straight tracks
Connecting Point tracks
Curved tracks

First I attached the blu- tack to the back of the tracks. Starting from the floor skirting board, I worked my way up the wall using the ‘straight’ tracks – making sure to place three tracks close to each other to create the thickness of the tree ‘bark’.

I kept going with the ‘straight’ looking tracks up the wall until I reached the height I wanted. When I got to the middle I then added the bridge tracks to the middle of the bark to allow the tree to branch out

I then started to use the ‘curved tracks’ to create the effect of branches. This can be designed any way you want but I stuck with the rule: one track facing inwards and the next track facing outward.

I used the tracks with two connecting points to make even more branches from one line of tracks. I had a go at this tree three times before I was happy with the end results. The first tree looked like this…

Here are the alphabet letters that I bought as a set, off eBay (you can find similar ones here)– I decorated them with fabric, paint, and decoupage paper. I had a helping hand from my friend with this part. We used the Mod Podge glue to stick it all down and also used it as a sealant to protect the letters. It took quite a while to decorate all the letters, so I’d suggest buying ready-decorated letters if you want to save time.

The last step involved arranging all the letters around the tree. I managed to place the whole alphabet around the tree in four rows. I needed it to have some sort of order to it so my son would be able to engage and learn from it.

Again I used blu- tack here to stick the letters to the wall. I did originally plan to use nails to keep everything in place, however, the blu-tack worked really well so I decided to leave it like that.

What do you think? Be sure to leave me a comment below – I love hearing your thoughts! Also apologies for the crappy photos, I had just figured out how to use my cheap camera phone at the time haha!