DIY Wood Burned Cooking Utensils

It's amazing what will spark your creativity when you're not even looking. I spotted a collection of boring, plain wooden kitchen utensils at the grocery store last week, and I couldn't just leave them there. They had to come home with me and be turned into something fun.

After watching Danny use his wood burning pen to create some amazing art for his customers, I wanted to give it a try myself. He is able to put some breath-taking detail into his pictures, but I'm definitely not to that stage yet. These utensils were a great project to get me started.

I started with the words, measuring the space I had to work with on each handle.

 Then I printed out phrases that would fit in each handle.

I cut a strip of carbon paper to fit...

...and lay the words on top.

I burnished the letters on the paper, through the carbon paper and onto the wood.

This gave me the template I needed for burning.

A thin tip let me run in the fine details of the words. It's so important to move slowly and carefully, staying on the lines and not getting carried away. The slower you move, the darker the burning will be - it's not about pressing harder or you'll singe it instead of burn it.

For the dots, I switched to a thicker tip and let it rest longer on the wood. The random pattern here is my favorite, but I have a few other designs I would like to try. Back to the store for more wooden kitchen utensils!