Woodburning Project for the coming Grandbaby!

 Have you ever tried woodburning? I can't even remember when I first started it. But I do know it is SO easy. All you need is a woodburning tool, the ability to trace, and patience!

When my daughter and I started planning a baby shower, I decided to go with a woodland theme. She had already started planning the baby nursery with bears and foxes, mountains and arrows, etc... so I wanted to continue that. 

When it came to the cake, I was having trouble finding a cake topper for a sheet cake. I found a lot of cute toppers for a round stacked cake, but not really anything that would look good on a large sheet cake. I knew I wanted the cake to have a birch tree look, but was lost on the topper.

I finally came up with an idea! I would buy a wood round with the bark still on the edge, and woodburn his name onto it. Then I would paint some trees in the background and add a little wooden animal to it. I like to use multi-media when creating things. Then, after the shower, it can be used as a decoration in his room.

Here is the final result!

This project was so easy. I began by creating my design in Canva. I use this free website all the time. I chose a poster template for the right size. I did his name first, then found the perfect tree. I saved it, printed it, then used carbon copy paper to trace it onto my wood.

I purchased the wood round from Walmart.

I bought a couple of little wooden animals from Hobby Lobby; an unfinished fox and a painted bear.

        

I absolutely loved the bear... but then again, I had a plan for the fox. I wanted to woodburn part of it, and paint part of it with a burnt orange color. The second photo is after I traced the design onto the wood and burnt it in. I did not burn the leaves. I could paint them on later and use my design as my guide. 

Next I painted the tree just using a matte white acrylic paint. I was careful to not paint over my burnt lines... just up to them. Next I burnt my fox and painted it. After the tree dried good, I decided to stain the wood. It was just too light for the look I wanted. 

I used this stain from Hobby Lobby and a small brush. I made sure to get my brush wet each time. I would paint on a little area of stain, then use a paper towel and rub off the excess. I did get some on my tree in a few places, but I just painted over it later. Next time, I will stain before painting!

After the stain dried, I burnt around the edge to give it the shading I wanted.

I then painted on the leaves using a matte acrylic paint in a sage green color. And then took the white I used for the treen and highlighted the leaves a bit.

Next I sealed the wood bark edge. I used what I had on hand which was Waverly Chalk Paint matte Varnish. I didn't want pieces of bark in the cake!

The bear wound up looking too dark next to the stained wood, so I decided to use the fox. So the last thing I did was glue him onto the plaque. I love how this turned out!! I will do a blog post later on how I did his cake and how I put the topper on.