Rustic Wood Slice Christmas Ornaments

November 30, 2015 Elizabeth

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‘Tis the season to be crafty! In honor of that mantra, these wood slice Christmas ornaments are a perfect blend of rustic, festive, and easy to make. My inspiration for this craft came from Mountain Modern Life.

Materials

Wood slices (mine were 3-4″ in diameter)
Printable designs (Mountain Modern Life has some great ones and I provided the ones I made for you to download below)
Water
Paintbrush
Small eye hooks
Ribbon or twine

How to Make Wood Slice Christmas Ornaments

If you’re planning on using wood that you have cut, bake your wood slices at a low heat (approximately 200 degrees F) for 45 minutes on each side to dry out the wood and kill any critters that may be hiding in the wood. If needed, sand the surface and the edges of the wood. Wipe the surface of the wood with a damp cloth to remove the residual sawdust. If you have slices that you’ve purchased from a store, you can skip this step.

Print and cut out your pattern so it is a little smaller than the diameter of the wood circles. If you are designing your own pattern, make sure to make your words a mirror image.

For my purposes, inserting the eye hooks worked best before transferring the design. To make it easier, pre-poke a hole with a push pin.

Screw in the eye hooks using your fingers or a pair of pliers.

Place your design on top of your wood slice, words facing down.

Dip a paintbrush into water and brush the water on top of your words. You want the paper wet so the words appear darker, but don’t make the paper soggy. I found that wetting and transferring one row of text at a time worked best.

Use the back of your paintbrush and rub the damp paper with medium pressure. Rub the back of the paintbrush and vary your direction. You water will dry as you go, so if it gets too dry, just add more water. It’s okay if the paper begins to pill up a little bit (in fact, I would often keep going until the paper began to pill).

Repeat the same process with the other lines of your design.

You can lift up the corner to peek at your design. If there’s any spot that is lighter, add more water and continue the transfer process.

If you’d like, you can trace over the design with a fine-point Sharpie. My designs were too small for this to work and I kind of liked the faded, almost-stamped look, so I stuck with what I had. Add a coat of sealer if you wish. I did a few test pieces and didn’t like how they looked, so I skipped that step as well.

Add ribbon through the eye hooks and tie for easy hanging.