Wood crafting!

Thank you so much to Stephanie and Jeremy for hosting my trip to Baltimore, Maryland this last week!  We had so much fun with a number of inside jokes ("don't lick that!")...

One of the most fun things we did was stumble upon "Reclaimed by You," where we had the opportunity to make our own high-quality woodcrafts.  I selected some beautiful old poplar from an old Maryland barn that had to be demolished after a flood.  I did not do a good job of documenting the full process, but before I go through the process, let me show you the finished results!

The Process

Select Design, Wood, and Project

Of course your stencil design will depend on the wood and project, and the wood will depend on your stencil design and project!  It's a personal decision, of course.  I wanted something small enough to fit in a grocery bag so I could carry it home on the plane easily enough, and had a small set of designs to select from.  Some of my favorites featured on the site include customization of magnetic and chalk boards, tables, even doors, wall hangings, and this cute wall-mount bottle opener that has a magnetic bottle-cap catcher!

Stain the Wood

As much as I LOVE the look of green poplar, and even skipped the stain on the bed I built last weekend made of it, I decided for this project to give the wood a red tint to match the red in my entry-way to make this the perfect entryway hanging.

Cut the Masking Tape Design

This requires a precision, computer-controlled cutter, or a really good freehand cut with an exacto knife.  We were at a workshop party, so we used pre-cut designs in a masking tape.  On our side, all we had to do was pick out the part of the design we wanted painted.  In this photo you see my stained wood on my right, my design in front of me, and my friend with her project masked by all my activity to my left.

Transfer the Patterned Masking Tape to the Wood

This requires a little bit of skill and some magic tricks...  It's not that hard, actually, there's a decent transfer tape you can buy to lay down over your entire tape pattern, and then roll it all down onto your wood with careful alignment.  It's not that different from using the same technique for making microfluidics, actually, just at a larger scale!

Paint the Un-Masked Regions

This is as easy as loading up a brush and swiping it over the areas you want to paint, and the tape-based stencil does all the hard work of making sure your paint goes only where you want it to go!  You can let it air-dry (the paints available at the workshop dried in about 5 minutes without help, and in about 60 seconds with blow-drying).  I don't have any photos from this step as I was so excited to see my design come together....

Pull up the Tape Mask

This is as easy as it sounds, also, just pull up the tape and watch your design come together!  SO FUN!!

Seal and Varnish

At the workshop, they had a super fast-drying wax-based sealant they used that you could wipe over the entire design and would dry within about 10 minutes under ambient or about 90 seconds with a blow drier.  Again no photos, because I was too absorbed in my work....  but at the end, we got these wonderful products:

Prior to sealant curing, hence the slight blue tint in regions.

My friend's art after completion - she wants to mount hooks in the top and right so that it will be a place for keys and voila wall art + no more lost keys!

My finished project required a couple more steps due to the two-color nature, but it wasn't challenging even for a novice of the technique.  It did require a little more consumption of chocolates, but it came together nicely.

Enjoy the Finished Products!

Here my friend and I are standing in a little photo booth made entirely of reclaimed products, proudly showing off our finished crafts after stumbling into the shop only two hours prior.