Pyrography Project

I bought a wooden birdhouse at the craft store with the idea that my daughter would spend hours and hours unleashing her creativity on it this summer.  I envisioned her meticulously sketching out a design and then painting it lovingly onto the wood; her little tongue captured between her teeth like she does when she's concentrating, and at the end of it all I'd have a masterpiece and keepsake. 

Yeah, that didn't happen. Between Minecraft videos and video games, she just couldn't find the time and when I kicked her off the internet and pried her fingers off the controller and told her I'd force her to work on it, she was so unenthused that she was just planning on smacking paint all over it like a toddler.

So instead of focusing on my failures as a mother and inspirational goddess, I decided I'd just trick this birdhouse out myself.  I recently purchased a wood burning tool (I've been wanting to try it for years) and this was my second project with it.

I found this lovely vintage tablecloth at Salvation Army last year and it was my source of inspiration.

It needed a bit of color. I didn't want it to be too vibrant or cover up the wood burning so I used this set of watercolors from IKEA and then put a couple layers of clear coat on it. 

I was pretty proud of it and I knew when my daughter saw it she would be green with envy that I had created such a masterpiece when she could have done the same.  I'll never know though, since I haven't been able to get her off YouTube to look at it.