Easy DIY antique brass christmas nutcracker

My husband loves nutcrackers, its always been his favorite decor. Every year when I take out the decorations, he always looks for the nutcracker he picked out years ago. Well this year…my son found it and then it was lost (toddlers). I needed to find a replacement!

As soon as I saw these unfinished wooden nutcrackers I knew I had to have them. They reminded me so much of a high end version I saw at PB. You can paint them, stain them, or even leave them as is. The large one is 2 feet tall! While the shorter ones are 14 inches. They are perfect sizes at affordable prices. After some research, I decided the best thing to do would be to create an antique brass look. This was so simple and easy to do but gave a high end look, which is my favorite kind of DIY. If you want to know how to create this antique brass nutcracker, keep reading!

Supplies

Wooden Nutcrackers: This one is the 14 inch and here is the 2 foot size.

Black spray paint

Antique Gold rub-n-buff

Paint brushes to get into the small spaces on the nutcrackers.

First thing you’re going to do is to spray paint it black. This doesn’t need to be perfect because you’re just going to add the rub-n-buff on top. Starting with the black will give it a more antique look when you add the rub-n-buff vs just going in with only that. I wouldn’t recommend skipping this step.

I liked when how some of the black parts weren’t fully covered, only adding to the antique look I was going for. Here is a lovely picture of me in my garage spray painting.

Next add the star of the show, the rub-n-buff in antique gold. I love this stuff, I feel like I use it so often. It gives such a great color. I used a paint brush to get into the hard to reach spaces, and used a paper towel to just rub in the gold color all around where I could. Once gain, don’t forget, it doesn’t need to be perfect! I said this was going to be easy, didn’t I.