Ever since I saw THIS post from Amy Christie, I have never looked at any common wooden household item the same.
I can’t help it. I must always ask…could I etch that? 馃檪 Like these kid spoons I posted about here.
And…like these hangers…
I decided to make a couple of them “his and hers.”
And others “Mr. and Mrs.”
They would make a lovely handmade wedding present, don’t you think?
Throw in a gift card to a home store and you have a perfect marriage of sentimental handmade personality and useful practicality. Pun intended. 馃槈
Or…just make some for fun…with dots and hearts…
All you need are some wooden hangers and an wood burn tool or an etcher!
I got my hangers at Ikea for $4 for an 8 pack. My wood burn tool is from Michael’s years ago. I think it was $15 after coupon. A worthy investment that I have used many times already.
I’ll leave you with a few things to keep in mind when wood burning or etching:
– The tool聽gets extremely hot. Use caution the whole time it’s on and when it’s turned off but still cooling.
– Dots are the easiest design to manage. Any lines or words take a lot of patience.聽Go slowly. If you make a mistake there is no real way to “erase” it unless you rework your design. You can lightly mark out your design beforehand with a pencil if you feel more comfortable with that. Simply erase any remaining pencil marks after etching.
– Expect to smell like campfire when you’re done. You are, after all…burning wood. 馃槈
-This is a craft of patience. It bears repeating…go slowly. I sort of enjoy the still, quiet concentration it requires. It invites a nice change of pace to the day. 馃檪
I love those! If I owned any wooden hangers I would be doing this RIGHT NOW…. I need to go to the store. =)
Thanks Charity!
What a fun idea!! And it would totally be a sweet wedding gift! 馃檪 and yay for ikea and inexpensive wooden hangers, right?!
Totally! 馃槈
It’s such a good idea ! Now i want to go to Ikea… 馃槈
This is in no way meant to be a criticism – I love all your articles! But what you are using is a wood burner. Etching refers to a dremel (or I guess laser wood cutting too but that’s industrial, not DIY). Hope this helped!
No problem. In terms of general crafters, wood burner and wood etcher are used interchangeably. A quick google search will show that. I appreciate you making the distinction though. That google search mostly proves that we are getting lazy with using the proper terms. It never hurts to be more precise! 馃檪 I will definitely be more cognizant of how I use the term in the future. Thanks!
I love it! In Mexico they use a very similar tool to draw or write on leather and it looks really cool!
I’ve been wanting to try it on leather! Thanks Nora. 馃檪