Burning a Design Into a Wooden Trivet

Jody Harris
by Jody Harris
5 Materials
$10
4 Hours
Easy

I saw this idea on YouTube from Mr. Crafty Pants and I thought I’d try it. It’s easy to do and I loved the outcome.

So I started with this cutting board. You need to use raw wood. Nothing that is sealed, painted or waxed. Bamboo is also NOT recommended to use.

I used this design from Cricut Design Space. But, you could really use any kind of stencil you wanted. You could even paint a design on free hand if you are brave enough!

Ok, so I go excited and forgot to take a picture of the design I put on the board. But, this is from another project so you can see how it looks. This is stencil vinyl from Cricut. You can use any vinyl you want, I just had some stencil kind.

This is the what you mix together with water to form the gel that you paint on. The recipe is 8 tsp. of thickener, 1Tbsp ammonium chloride into 1/2 cup warm water. Let it sit for 10 minutes until it becomes a gel like texture. Paint it on, the thinner the better. Let dry thoroughly, about 45 minutes.

Like I said earlier I forgot to show the stencil on the board. But, here it is after I have taken it off. You can see a slight “haze” gel mixture on the board. I started with this heat gun but it wasn’t powerful enough so I changed over to a more powerful one.

Make sure you keep moving the gun to make sure you don’t make burn spots where you don’t want it. It’s so cool when your design starts to show!

I wanted to make a trivet out of it so I used these candle cups to put on the bottom.

I used E 6000 to attach them.

This is a picture of another design I tried using on a piece of leftover pine board from another project. You can see where a few spots are more burned than others because I left it in that spot too long. In the end I went over it and made all of it darker.

And here it is done. I just love it.

Suggested materials:
  • Cutting board   (Grocery Outlet store)
  • Thick it thickener   (Amazon)
  • Ammonium chloride   (Amazon)
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Frequently asked questions
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  3 questions
  • Katie Katie on Aug 30, 2021

    Love it. But I wanna know about the glass or resin thing in the picture. What is it and how do I make it???

  • Raukon Raukon on Aug 30, 2021

    Beautiful project! So how did you get so much precision using a heat burning gun? Do you believe it worked better than wood burning tool kit?

  • Kfr8668371 Kfr8668371 on Sep 27, 2021

    Where did you find a cutting board like that for 3.99?

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