How to Make a Sugar Skull Bunting With a Wood Burning Tool

SunflowerHugs
by SunflowerHugs
1 Hour
Easy
Michael's sells wood burning tools and with a coupon, they are very affordable. With the round flat tip you are able to transfer laser jet (toner based) images onto wood or fabric. Here's how to make a bunting with the tool...
Start with taping the wood burning tool holder to your table. This will prevent the tool from falling and from you burning yourself while trying to catch it. Add the flat round tip that is used to transfer the images.
I prepared my wood chip bunting pieces by giving them 2 light coats of white craft paint. I had already experimented on transferring the image on the natural wood and decided the colors would pop more on a white background.
To get the sugar skulls, I Googled it and found tons of images. I just copied and pasted them into a document and then sized them to fit my bunting pieces. I chose 6 different skulls and did 2 of each. All of them fit on one page.


I printed out a copy (I have a laser jet printer), but you could send them to print at an office supply store that makes toner copies. You have to make sure they are toner based and not ink jet--ink jet won't work.


Then I cut each skull out. You need to leave some paper around the image to be able to tape it to the piece and also so when you move your tool around, you don't burn the wood.
Center the image on the piece as best you can, and then tape the image, image side down, to the wood piece. I just taped the top to keep it in place. Turn on your wood burning tool and let it heat up for a few minutes.


Then all you have to do is place the tool onto the paper like you are ironing. Keep moving it around and you will see how the paper starts to stick to the wood. That is when you know it is transferring.


When you think it is all transferred, lift a corner to check. If a spot is missing, just put the paper down and iron again.


Just be aware, the image doesn't transfer 100% onto the wood, it has a distressed look. It also is lighter than the image printed on the paper.
To finish it up, I painted the edges of the bunting pieces black and strung them together with black yarn. It took about an hour to do the whole thing!
I can't wait for October to hang it up for my Halloween decor!


You could do this with any kind of theme--all you have to do is size the images to your wood pieces and print them out with a laser jet. Next I want to do one for my daughter's room with images of My Little Pony or Monster High. Or you could do one with your kid's photos for their birthday.


As for the cost...


The wood chip bunting pieces are $.29 each and I used 12, so that was $3.48 total.


I had the yarn and the paint. Small bottles of craft paint are $.99 and you could use any kind of string you have.


I just got the wood burning tool and it was $29.99, but I used a 40% off coupon making it $17.99.


If you had to get the images printed, I think it is like $.89 a page and I only used 1 piece of paper.
SunflowerHugs
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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