Having newly acquired the skill of pyromancy, er, I mean pyrography, I wanted to apply it to a wedding shower present for a friend of mine. Nicole has always been encouraging of my crafting projects. And her husband to be is a graphic designer and artist who appreciates anything handmade.
So I hit up a couple of discount home goods stores and went searching for interesting pieces of wood to burn. I found some more sets of wooden cooking utensils (much like the ones I had decorated for Danielle) and several very pretty cutting boards. I picked a paddle shaped one and went to work sketching out a design. I drew their initials and the year in the center of the board and then some roses. Since I wanted to add something that would represent both of them, I did some searches for some images that represent Puerto Rico, flowers, fruit, and eventually came across the Coqui... an adorable species of tree frog. It had a tiny body, over-sized head, round little toys and huge expressive eyes.
I added a pair of these frogs to the board and then drew rose vines around the board to help tie everything together. Once the outlines were burnt into the board, I went back and added some shading to give the flowers and frogs some depth. I did have a couple of issues with this project. While this board was much smoother than the wooden utensils, it was also coated in some kind of resin, which made the initial burns work more towards taking the coating off than making good lines. Some areas I went over with the burner many times until I changed the burner tip to one that was thicker. Had I taken more time with it, there are definitely some sections of the design I would have gone over even more to get a better outline. I also would have made the initials bigger had I known ahead of time what kind of images I would have used for the border.
Overall though, I was happy with how it turned out and the couple were even more impressed with the gift once they realized I had made it myself.
So I hit up a couple of discount home goods stores and went searching for interesting pieces of wood to burn. I found some more sets of wooden cooking utensils (much like the ones I had decorated for Danielle) and several very pretty cutting boards. I picked a paddle shaped one and went to work sketching out a design. I drew their initials and the year in the center of the board and then some roses. Since I wanted to add something that would represent both of them, I did some searches for some images that represent Puerto Rico, flowers, fruit, and eventually came across the Coqui... an adorable species of tree frog. It had a tiny body, over-sized head, round little toys and huge expressive eyes.
I added a pair of these frogs to the board and then drew rose vines around the board to help tie everything together. Once the outlines were burnt into the board, I went back and added some shading to give the flowers and frogs some depth. I did have a couple of issues with this project. While this board was much smoother than the wooden utensils, it was also coated in some kind of resin, which made the initial burns work more towards taking the coating off than making good lines. Some areas I went over with the burner many times until I changed the burner tip to one that was thicker. Had I taken more time with it, there are definitely some sections of the design I would have gone over even more to get a better outline. I also would have made the initials bigger had I known ahead of time what kind of images I would have used for the border.
Overall though, I was happy with how it turned out and the couple were even more impressed with the gift once they realized I had made it myself.
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