DIY Cutting Board with Mom's Recipe

DIY Cutting Board with Mom's Recipe

This was a lot of fun to make!  It's much easier than I thought.  I purchased a bamboo cutting board at Wal-mart along with the wood burning tool set below.  It was in the craft department of Wal-mart.

I used the tip that was similar to a felt tip pen.  It worked on the bamboo the best for me.  You can experiment with the tip that works best for you.  This tool was comfortable to use.  

The first thing I did was scan my mom's recipe into my computer.  I then opened it in a program that made it larger.  I wanted it to fill up most of the cutting board.  I printed off the recipe.  Next, I placed a piece of carbon paper over the board and then centered the recipe onto the board.  It's easier to center if you cut away most of the paper around your recipe.  I traced the handwriting with one of those mechanical pencils.  I liked the very fine point for the tracing.  That way you can get the handwriting as close to the original.   

I then heated the iron up and began "writing" with it.  I used it like a pen or pencil and found it quite easy to fill in as shown in the image of the bread, flour and eggs.  If you can color in a coloring book, you can do this.  The bamboo is fairly forgiving and I just began coloring and it was so easy!  For the darker areas of shading, I went over a few times pressing a little harder until the desired effect was achieved.  I tried the very fine point from the tool kit and found it would take me forever, so I gave the "felt tip" type point a try and it worked perfect.  I was still able to achieve the fine lines.  This was on the bamboo.  I haven't tried using the tool on the other types of wood cutting boards.  Like the instructions say on the tool package, don't squeeze the tool too hard while working or you'll burn your fingers!  Very true!  Just relax and take your time and it won't burn.  Have fun!

Here are two I made for my mother-in-law to give to my brother and sister-in-law.  These are fun to make.  

After our move into a new home, I found this oak cutting board I had from way back in one of the older packed boxes.  I thought I could burn sunflowers onto the board for my daughter.  She loves sunflowers.  : )  The wood was easy to work with the burning.  I found this lovely wallpaper border print online and did the same where I used carbon paper to trace the image onto the board.  

 

Here's a fun idea where you can use an image from a wedding invitation to make a wonderful gift for the bride and groom.  I did this one the same as above by scanning the monogram band you see around the invitation into my computer and printing off the size I needed to fill the bottom of the cutting board.  You can get these bamboo cutting boards at Walmart.  

Barbie Wedding Gown

Barbie Wedding Gown

Here is a wedding gown I made for my granddaughter, Cadance.  She has a Ken doll who wears a tux and she asked Nana if I would make her a gown. 

You can get the pattern for the gown at the following link:

https://sites.google.com/s/1KXHUTF4J-8G2ZCu-d9MCBHfG4AjQ8MkY/p/1GEBd_Oh3I_SZJ9t5gjFy1hkMWXgdK38W/edit

Items Needed:

Satin Fabric 1/4 of a yard
Sheer Fabric as shown in photo 1/4 of a yard
Thread to match
Desired Lace Trims
Velcro

There are two downloads.  One is the bodice patterns and the other is the skirt pattern.  Be sure to print each of the two downloads at 100% for the correct size.  The pattern pieces are pretty self explanatory if you have sewn 11 1/2" doll patterns before.  You'll want to start by making the darts in both the front and back bodices. Next, sew the front and back bodices together with right sides together.  All seams and hems are 1/4 inch.  Make the hem at the top of the bodice front and back.  Sew the trim(s) at the top of the front bodice.  Set aside.   You can leave out the trim on the under skirt of the gown if you prefer.  If you do add a trim, be sure to hem the under skirt with a width that will allow the trim to match the hem length on the over skirt.  Next, add the trim to the under skirt hem.  Hem the over skirt too.  Sew the over skirt to the under skirt at the top of the waist line.  Gather that top edge by basting.  Pull threads to gather and pin to the entire front and back bodice matching edges.  Sew in place.  You will now have a facing at the back of the two sides of the bodice and the back of the skirt.  Press them down to the inside of the gown with your iron.  Sew the raw edge down.  I cut a 1/4" width of the Velcro with the length to match the length of the opening on the back of the gown.  Pull the Velcro apart.  Place the top piece of Velcro under the left edge of the opening on the gown.  Press down the entire length.  Do the same for the bottom piece of the Velcro pressing it down on the top of the right edge opening.  The gown is now ready for Barbie's special day.  


The bouquet was made with the glue and bread dough, a small Styrofoam ball, ribbons and rhinestones.  I used jewelry wire made into a small loop about a half inch long and hot glued its ends into the Styrofoam ball.  A piece of 1/8" elastic was looped through the wire loop and hot glued together at the ends to form a bracelet for Barbie.  I cut off the extra length.  This way you can put her hand through the elastic bracelet and let her fingers go through the wire loop for holding the bouquet. 


To make the glue and bread dough, take a slice of white bread, (don't use wheat) remove the crusts.  Tear the bread into 1 inch pieces.  In a small bowl, pour about 1 tbls of Elmer's Glue and add the bread pieces.  Knead the dough until it is smooth and like dough.  You may need to add more glue if necessary.  After you have kneaded it, you can split the dough into separate dough balls.  Add food color.  Green for the leaves and I left the other dough ball white for the roses.  You can add whatever color you'd like.  To make a rose, tear off a tiny amount of the dough from the ball and roll into a tiny ball.  Shape into an oblong ball.  Next, tear off a tiny amount again and flatten the dough to as thin as you can without tearing.  Wrap that piece round the oblong ball to resemble a bud.  You can leave it as a bud or you can add more flatten pieces of dough around each "petal" to make your desired rose size.  When you have your desired size rose, pinch off the bottom with your fingernail to make a flat bottom for gluing.  Set aside each rose for drying.  For the leaves, tear off a tiny piece again and flatten the dough.  Shape into a leaf by pinching each end.  I let them dry overnight and then hot glued the roses, leaves and rhinestones to the Styrofoam ball.  


I then used a 1/2 inch wide sheer ribbon as shown around the bottom of the bouquet.  I made a basting stitch at the bottom of one edge of the ribbon to gather and then hot glued it around the bottom of the bouquet.  Next, I added 1/8" wide satin ribbon in colors to match the wedding colors.  Each ribbon was cut to 2 inches in length.   I hot glued them to the back of the bouquet behind the sheer ribbon.  I made a tiny bow and glued it over the glued ends of ribbons.  If desired, press the sticky side of the rhinestones into the bottom of the ribbons as shown.   

Japanophile