Do you smell burning?

When I visited my sister in France recently, she was celebrating her wood (fifth) wedding anniversary. She got a wood burning tool and decorated a set of raclette spatulas with pictures of love hearts as a gift for her other half. They had love hearts as their wedding favours so it was especially appropriate. She had quite a few spare spatulas so she let me have a go and it was great fun!

Here is my Scandinavian-esque heart design.

I managed to make this spatula look like a paintbrush mid use. Kind of...

And then I did a random wood burning of a tiny little horse in a field, just to see if I could.

As far as I could see, the wood burning tool was pretty much the same as a soldering iron, just with a few different nozzle type bits for varying thicknesses/effects. I bought a soldering iron years ago (for burning holes in fabric) so I think I might try using it to do some more wood burning. I have a great idea for Christmas decorations but my Christmas ideas list is way out of hand so that may have to wait for next year!

It was a lot of fun to try a new craft. I think I might compile a list of crafts I want to try (or revisit) in 2010. That would be much more fun than a normal new year's resolution.

Our day's charity shopping yesterday was quite successful. Graham got a DVD and I got some fun paper coasters to upcycle, as well as some fabric to make new cushion covers from. I am determined they will be better than the last ones I made and that they will not develop holes. I have learned from my errors! I also got quite a few books, including one on how to make all sorts of huts and tree houses and one really ace crochet book from the sixties signed by the author and everything. But by far the best 25p I spent was on a video for cats. Here's a picture of Lola watching it this morning. Poppy was watching it too, only she preferred to watch from behind the safety of the sofa!