The Craftiest Workshop

I am a craft supply hoarder. When my kids were small I would keep anything that I thought we might use to make a craft, homemade card or even incorporate into their play.
One of the things I never throw away are the covers and text of old Christmas cards. I used them when I made a scrapbook of our family Christmas’s. I have also made ornaments and a basket using old cards.
Cleaning up my craft room, I decided to sort through the cards and get rid of some that I didn’t think I would use. Sometimes the image is not pleasing, the words don’t inspire me or it was just too large or small. As I was perusing through the cards, I discovered a number of them that I thought I would like to recreate onto wood using my wood burner and acrylic paint.

The first card I chose was of the three wisemen. The colours of the card immediately drew me to it but as I looked deeper, it was the shapes everywhere that intrigued me.

I found a piece of 2X4 in the garage that had some colour still on one edge. I had planned to burn it onto a rectangular piece but once I finished, I decided to use the band saw to cut the top just like the card.

Here they are side by side. I recently got a ball tip for my burner and this was my first attempt at using it to darken a background.

The next card I decided to put onto wood was a Winnie the Pooh card that”spoke” to me.

Whenever I think of the Hundred Acre Woods, I immediately look for a pice of wood that is not dimensional or a store bought wood slice. Our recent cutting of some fallen trees yielded me some 1/4 logs that I spent a day sanding. This piece had lovely wood grain making it easy to place the words. The slight colour just above Pooh made me think of clouds or mist drifting in. There is also a small knot on the backside of the log giving it some extra character.

Here are the two together.

From Winnie the Pooh, I moved onto the Peanuts gang. I had three different Charles Schultz cards.

This first one is a classic with everyone gathered around the Charlie Brown Christmas tree after it had transformed into a beautiful tree.

I have this large and heavy piece of birch that has a knot on top making it seem like an ornament. I still may slice the bottom so that it can stand up on its own. Another option will be to add a hanger in the back so it can adorn a wall. It does sit quite nicely on my wooden stand.

For the other two peanuts cards, I choose to just focus on what Snoopy and Woodstock were doing. These smaller scenes allowed me to put them onto maple wood slices.

This last one I will share with you had me taking something from two cards and make it into a new scene.

I decided to combine this Nordic Santa with this sled. I used another piece of 1/4 log, burned the outline and black parts then painted the rest with acrylic paint.

I still have some finishing to do on all of these, touching up the burning or paint and then coating each with Polycrylic.
If you have any beautiful Christmas cards lying around, take a few pictures of them and send them my way. They are really great sources of wood burning inspiration.