Burnin' It Up!

Doesn't it look gorgeous and, dare I say, so serene, finally hanging on my wall? I admit this piece took me far longer than it needed to, but if I'd have completed on my original schedule, I wouldn't have been happy.

This pyrography project started out as a wall hanging at the local Goodwill store. Dear hubby and I were on a wood rescuing mission and this one jumped out at us. We took it home, pulled the lace off the back that filled in the heart and he sanded all the dark, dark, dark brown paint off the front.

Then it sat in the pile for about 6 months, keeping all the other pieces of wood company while I contemplated what to do with it. I decided the serenity prayer would be perfect, found a beautiful font, printed it all out, chopped it up and carefully set it in place. 

Then came the carbon paper. I don't have legible handwriting, so the thought of me freehanding anything is laughable. I covered the entire piece in carbon paper, then repositioned the wording, secured with masking tape and penciled over it so the words would transfer onto the wood.

I used a woodburning tool with a chisel tip for everything until the very last step. For whatever reason, even though I'm right-handed, I work from right to left. It's one of my quirks, like how I tend to read magazines from back to front. Who knows why I am the way I am?!

And this is where things came to a screeching halt. I decided I didn't know if I liked the way things were going and thought it best to step away and just let it cool off, so to speak. That was March 19.

Today is April 29 and I finally decided it's time. I picked up my little woodburner and heated things up! After I finished burning all of the words, I switched out the chisel tip for a shading tip and went around the edge of the entire piece and the heart, the swiped back and forth across the face. 

Here's the final piece. I LOVE IT!!! It has a rustic feel to it. Of course, seeing as it's still freshly burned, it smells like freshly burned wood and that just makes it even better. Once I finished this one, I needed to do another and remembered that I had one more that I'd drawn out and not burned.

It started with a $1.00 wooden cross from Hobby Lobby.

I followed the same transfer process.

After I'd burned the design, I finished this piece off by wiping it down with a vegetable-oil-soaked paper towel. When all of the oil absorbs, I'll wipe it down a final time before it gets sealed.