Wood Burning Craft

This weekend we set some time aside and did wood burning craft with my daughter.

I bought this wood burning kit online. It includes the wood burning tool with different tips, paint and paint brushes, pencils, sand paper and several pictures for tracing on the wood. There are also wooden picture frames, different shapes of wood plaques and wooden key chains.

It’s spring time so we decided to carve out the pictures of fruits. I went with a peach on the branch and my daughter chose an apple with a stem. First, we traced the picture on the board. Then we warmed up the electric burning tool and burned the wood along the tracing lines. Beware of the tool, it becomes extremely hot. I would say it’s pretty dangerous to use for little hands. Even I accidently burned myself, the moment I got it in my hands. Thankfully, my daughter was more careful than me and she did pretty well.

The burning tool was burning the wood as we pressed on, leaving a brownish trail behind. It felt good to work with the wood. After the carving was done, we painted our wooden pictures with the paint that was included in the set. The paint sat perfectly on the wood leaving no smudges. We let the paint dry and ta-da! There was the result of our creative work. Now it’s ready to be exposed. I don’t think we will use it as a key chain even if it has this little hole in the corner of the wooden plaque. We will most likely thread a piece of rope through it and display it on the wall in the hallway.

As I worked with the wood, I thought of Jesus. Jesus must have worked with wood a lot. He was the son of a carpenter, Joseph. It was mentioned in the Scripture a couple of times:

"Isn't this (Jesus) the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon?“ (Mark 6:3).

"Isn't this (Jesus) the carpenter's son? Isn't his mother's name Mary, and aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas?" (Matthew 13:55).

Jesus was a craftsman, a builder, a creator as well as our Savior and Redeemer.

I wonder what Jesus was thinking about as he was working with the wood or stone in His earlier years of life. We can only assume.

All I can say that we felt at peace when crafting and burning the wood. It was a nice activity to do with my daughter on a rainy weekend. You should try it, too.

Have a blessed day. Stay safe!

Live and Rejoice.