Wood Burned Garden Markers

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    I am an extreme novice at wood burning, but I really want to get better at it.  My DIL, who is much better at it than I am, recently introduced me to a product that is changing my wood burning life.  I am still a novice, but now there is literally an entire new dimension to my wood burning because of this product! 

The Scorch Marker contains a non-toxic chemical that allows you to write or draw on wood and then use heat to achieve the look of wood burning. In order to apply heat, you need a heat gun like this: 

My husband recently bought me a heat gun because I told him that I wanted to try this craft! (Read about it here.) I have been having so much fun trying these new toys out! I have also been combining the Scorch Pen with my original wood burner to get a shading effect and to add depth to the things I do.

Since we have started to put in a small garden, I thought it would be fun to wood burn some cute garden markers to dress it up a little bit.  In my novice way, I started out using wood slices which I later learned was not the best choice for a wood burning project because of the darkness of the center of the wood and because of the sap if the wood is pine.   I made my first "Basil" marker before my Scorch Pen was delivered. 

You can find some slices that are slightly lighter in the center, depending on the type of wood. But, these are what I had on hand. You can see that it is hard to see the writing with the dark center.

Then the Scorch Marker was delivered and I tried it on the wood slice again for my tomatoes. 

Unfortunately, the heat gun made the dark center even darker and I had to go over the entire thing with the regular wood burner. Also, I tried making the dots with the pen, but the chemical bled into the wood and made larger dots than I wanted. I tried to fix those with the wood burner, too.

I realized that I needed lighter wood with a finer grain, made of something other than pine, such as ash or basswood. I had some of these lighter wood shapes. I don't know what wood they are but I tried them out with much better results.

You can see that some of the time I used only the Scorch Pen for the lettering, and sometimes I outlined the Scorch marking with the Wood Burner. I like it both ways. I always use the regular wood burner for the dots and small details.

Here is how I put the markers together, just click on the photos to see better. 

Pull a length of jute twine from the point of a wooden sucker stick to about an inch or so from the top.

Begin wrapping the twine around itself back down towards the point.

Leaving a tail of twine unwrapped, stop wrapping about 2 inches from the tip of the stick. Tie the 2 ends and clip the twine. Use hot glue to reinforce the know and stick it to the stick.

Glue the top of the unwrapped portion of the stick to the back of the wood burned oval. AI used hot glue.

Here is how they end up looking.

I used the originals on the wood slices in my garden. Push them into the ground up to where the twine starts. I might give some of these to some of the gardeners in my life.

I am enjoying learning something new!  Here are some the things I have learned so far:

• As mentioned, choose your wood carefully.  Something clear, with low sap and nice and smooth.  Bamboo is a really good choice as well.  I found some great bamboo spoons that I am going to try next. 
• When you use the Scorch Pen, be patient as the heat gun warms up, (and be careful with it). The chemical will begin to get darker and darker.  You can use this to your advantage for shading. 
• Use the pen carefully so you don't get too much chemical out, it takes just a little, because you don't want it to bleed. 

So, give the Scorch Marker a try and have some fun with it!  I feel like the possibilities are endless and I have just begun to scratch the surface! If you've tried it and you have any tips, please let me know in the comments!