Wood Burned Custom Bookmarks
A beginners wood burning project
I believe that we create the most unique, and amazing things when we are inspired by a loved one. To show an example of how I start a project inspired by someone, I chose to make a birthday gift for a friend. She loves her dogs (at least as much as I love my Bear-Bear!) and she’s been an avid reader as long as I’ve known her.
Choosing to combine her love of books with her love of dogs got me thinking about making custom bookmarks!
Once I had that idea all that was left was deciding on a design. I found this adorable picture of her sweet dogs on Facebook, and did some image editing in PowerPoint to fit the images to the bookmarks I had, to remove the background, and to make the image black & white so I’d know what to shade with my burning tool,
To help anyone figure out how to transfer an image found online, I’ve provided my general steps below!
(Remember you can do this with any image, not just what I show in the example! Use these steps to make something custom to the person who inspires you!)
How to take an image from the internet, and make it into a design to print out and wood burn:
Crop your image to a size that you want for your general template (I did one inch by one inch square) and arrange it on your design
Select remove background from the picture format menu
Ensure to select all the important details you want to keep with the “mark areas to keep” tool
Rearrange your new image so that it’s centered and where you want it in your design (repeat step 3 if you notice something didn’t remove correctly)
Change the image saturation to 0% from the color tool in the picture format menu
Before you print this out and burn it onto wood, consider mirroring the image if it’s required to be recognizable.
(Portraits and words for example look a little funny if you don’t mirror the image before transferring to your piece)
If you found these steps helpful, and are inspired to make something unique for yourself or a loved one, I hope you will consider the Crafty Plan for this piece.
It includes a bunch more details and tips that will make this project successful for you even if you’ve never wood burned anything before.
I can’t wait to see what you create!