Two of my wonderful friends - Robyn and Ewan- recently got engaged. we were friends in college and I was there for the early days and the more recent ones too so it was a very happy announcement for me and I felt a special gift was needed.
I found there were a few things to consider-
- I tried many different possibilities and options for a gift that I felt they would both enjoy, I always find that its the lady in the relationship that my present ideas are more geared towards.
- Another issue I faced was the posting and packaging! I've found that the mail service on the British isles can leave you with a bundled mess of a package, so whatever it was couldn't be too easily damaged!
- They already own their own house which is fully furnished and has to meet Robyn's high demands of interior design, so I had to avoid anything that would be too colourful in case it clashed with the scheme of a certain room!
- It also had to be fairly reasonable price wise as although I've graduated I'm really still living as a student so of course I'm not flush with cash!
I tried for coasters and cups, coffee sets (as they are avid coffee drinkers), picture frames and loads of other brain storming ideas!
Finally in a eureka moment I came across a wooden chopping board and the perfect quote all in the same day and then I came up with this:
I bought the chopping board (yes a heart chopping board!!) in a local DIY home store, I think it might have been 'Woodies'. It was under €20 I think so not too bad at all! Made from a hard wood, possibly cherry, it was very thick and pretty hard to work on so I would suggest using something lighter and probably softer too as I think it's now an ornament as opposed to a chopping board!!
First I printed off the quote I wanted to use on ordinary white paper and after a few attempts with different sizes and fonts I finally settled on one. I cut out the words into workable sizes and set about rearranging them on the board so it fit and looked most effective. This stage can probably be skipped if you trust yourself to do a good free hand job but I've been told my writing is reminiscent of a 'spirograph' so obviously this was safer!
I used a simple embossing tool that had a variety of head sizes to use and I found the most effective was the finest rounded tip.
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| After the etching process...time for a tea break to heal my aching hand!! |
It was a little messy and scrappy in parts but that's just like me so i think it made it more believable that I made it myself!
The next step was to pull out my seldom used hand-held wood burning tool. The short lead on the wood burner made life very difficult and to be honest it just didn't make sense. Some sections seemed to need a longer time than others but I would say it's always easier to go back over something to darken it than to leave the wood burner on for too long as you get a very obvious burn mark that is clearly a mistake!
On the back I wrote a free hand personal message and on the front I also did a free hand drawing of the typical love letters that you'd find carved in a tree!
I just received a lovely thank you note from the couple this morning which prompted me to post this up this afternoon! I hope it can serve as a bit of an inspiration for someone and I'm sure you could do a much neater job than I have here!
