DIY Geometric Wooden Art–From Scrap Wood

In this post, I’m sharing how to make your own DIY geometric wooden art pieces from scraps!

For the geometric design, I used some ½″ square dowels that I had leftover from when I made a modern sliding glass panel door.

Of course, if you don’t have ½″ square dowels, you could use any small, thin wood pieces to create a unique design or cut down some of your larger scraps to this size.

Step 1: Cut and Finish Back Panel Board

I mentioned earlier that I used ¾″ plywood for the back panel of this art piece.

Whatever material you decide to use for this, trim it to your desired size, sand it, and apply a finish, if desired.

It’s going to be MUCH easier to stain/paint this back panel now than after the pieces are attached.

Step 2: Layout and Cut Geometric Art Design

I used ½″ square dowels to create my geometric pattern. So first, I laid them out on the board from step 1 and kind of figured out what kind of shape(s) I wanted to create with them.

I marked where to trim the dowels and trimmed them a little long on the miter saw.

You don’t have to cut these at and angle. You want them to hang off the edge just a little when you glue them in place.

You’ll be trimming it flush later.

Once I had these pieces trimmed to rough length, I stained them Rustoleum Ebony.

Step 3: Attach Wooden Geometric Design and Trim Edges

After the stain had dried (kind of…I’m not that patient haha), I laid them out on the board how I wanted them and used some Krazy Glue Fast Dry Wood Glue to secure each piece in place one at a time.

You can use regular wood glue for this, but a fast drying wood super glue makes this quick and a lot less messy.

After I got one section glued on, I took it to the miter saw and trimmed the edges flush where the dowels were a little long.

Then, I repeated for the rest of the pattern and trimmed those sides as well.

PRO TIP: Don’t glue and trim them all at once. If you have pieces hanging off all sides, it will be difficult to sit square in the miter saw to trim the edges.

Step 4: Add Frame

Once all sides were trimmed flush, I cut to fit scrap 1x2s around the edges with 45 degree mitered ends to frame it out.

But, I recommend once you dry fit the pieces around the edge, stain or paint them as desired before attaching.

I used Krazy Glue Fast Dry Wood Glue again to simply glue these pieces around the edge so they were flush on the back side.

Step 5: Finish and Display

And with that, I wiped away all the dust and it was ready to sit on the shelf! If you wanted to seal it (that’s optional), I’d recommend something like Minwax Polycrylic spray sealer.

It will be difficult to brush sealer on this design, so spray is probably the easiest option to cover all surfaces evenly.

If you preferred to hang this instead of just sitting it somewhere, you can certainly attach hanging hardware on the back and use a roofing nail or a screw into a stud (or a drywall anchor) to hang this on the wall.

This would make a great little gift idea, and you could use different colors, designs to swap out for the seasons!

More Fun With Scrap Wood

Can’t get enough scrap wood projects?? I’m teaming up with my friend, Kati, from Houseful of Handmade all month long to share some “Scrap Wood Summer” Projects!

Check out all the projects in the series so far below. Click on an image to learn how to make each one!

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I hope you enjoyed this simple scrap modern art project and if you’d like to save it for later, don’t forget to pin it or share to your favorite social channel!