DIY Woodburned Bamboo Cutting Boards

Whoops! I kind of forgot I didn't talk about these cutting boards yet with my other Christmas gift handmades. 

I bought a set of 3 different sized cutting bamboo cutting boards for about $10 at Ross.  There's not too much to add about these that I haven't already said about the wooden spoons, so I'll let the photos speak for themselves. I used these three pins for the designs, but again, I have just free handed it onto the board with a pencil without tracing.



This one was the smallest board which is why I went with a full floral border. it was almost all done with my fine point tip with some of the small triangle leaves done with the universal tip.





This was the medium sized one, and I used both the fine tip and the flow tip. It seemed a little like there was a waxy residue building up on my fine tip, so watch out for that if you also choose bamboo. How cute is this little bird?





And finally, this was the largest of the three, and the only one that I did in a more seasonal (holiday) design. I think I used the flow point exclusively on this one.



They're almost too pretty to use, but I do hope that their recipients will at least use them to serve cheese or something :)

Woodburning has been a really fun little thing to do and has great wow factor! I think my mom will be enlisting my services to do some more spoons for her sisters this year :)

DIY Woodburned Utensils

I picked up pyrography/wood burning! Like I really needed a new hobby though ;)

We love wooden spoons for just about everything in the kitchen; consequently, we have about 10. I've been having a good time burning fun little designs into a set of spoons we picked up at Bed Bath and Beyond for real cheap, so I figured other people might like them as holiday gifts! I'd consider these to be a great return on time investment, because it takes very little time to do, and they have a pretty big impress factor. I finished all of these while watching Tangled :)

I found that the best designs for wood-burning beginners are embroidery designs and quilting lines (basically anything that has a nice clean line drawing). I used these pins as the basis for my designs, but I free-handed them, so I have no advice about tracing. I did pencil in my design first so I could get the spacing even, but feel free to just go for it.

This turned out to be quite the economical holiday gift, too, because I picked up this pack of 5 bamboo utensils at Ross for $5. I recommend picking utensils like these with flat handles because it gives a nice big surface to work on (I have also burned the classic wood spoons with thin round handles, and it's much harder to see the design/burn evenly). Personally, I prefer to burn the handles only as opposed to the bowl of the spoon because I don't want food to get stuck in the grooves. The pyrography tool itself can be found at Michael's, and I also saw lots of tip choices and even an alphabet set. I have the value pack that includes a universal tip, calligraphy tip, flow point, and fine tip.



I pretty much exclusively used the flow point and fine tip point for nice smooth lines, and the universal tip just a little for tiny fine lines.



I found the bamboo pretty easy to burn, although it did seem like there was a bit of a waxy residue, it didn't seem to cause too much of an issue. Just go nice and slow and you can always touch up any lines by going over it again.



Next hurdle, learning how to do some shading!

As always, I would love to see your creations!

My heart beets for a good pun

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Ooh, a rare art project from me :)  I don't really do much in the way of classical art projects - I'm more crafty than artistic I guess. I made this little painting for N for his birthday this year.  We kind of have a thing about beets, we're even growing a whole trough of them!

I used a small spare piece of Bristol paper (it's like a nice cardstock) and these really cool pearlescent watercolors.  They give your illustration a nice shimmer at the right angle; I regret I couldn't really take a good picture of it.