DIY: Wood You Be My Valentine? Etched Heart Flair Pins!

Wood You Be My Valentine? | Design Mom

Wood You Be My Valentine? | Design Mom

By Gabrielle. Photos by Amy Christie for Design Mom.

It’s been a whole year since I pulled out my wood burner/etcher. But I’m feeling the burn once again! So I was brainstorming possible wood-etched crafts with Amy, and she happened to mention there are metal initials you can use with your wood burner. They attach to the wood burner, heat up, and then “brand” the wood.

Well, that pretty much blew my mind, because trying to write with a wood burner is super hard and I generally avoid it, but now that I know about wood burning letters, it opens up all sorts of awesome possibilities!

wood-you-be-my-valentine 1Wood You Be My Valentine? | Design MomWood You Be My Valentine? | Design Mom

Awesome possibilities like these wooden initial pins! We’re calling them heart flair. (Did you ever see Office Space?) And the concept is pretty simple. Take pre-cut wooden hearts, burn in the initials of your true love (or all your 3rd grader’s classmates), and then glue a brooch pin on the back.

Wood You Be My Valentine? | Design MomWood You Be My Valentine? | Design MomWood You Be My Valentine? | Design Mom

You’ll find links to all the supplies below. Plus! There’s a super cute FREE printable to go with the pins!! Wood you be my valentine?

Get your etching tool plugged in and let’s get started.

Wood You Be My Valentine? | Design Mom

Here’s what Amy says:

Let’s do some more wood burning! Remember our wooden spoons? Cutting boards? Keychains? Using the same etching tool, plus a metal alphabet set, initial-etched hearts are a cinch. Hot glue a brooch pin to the back and it’s a bit of flair to share with your Valentines.

Wood You Be My Valentine? | Design MomWood You Be My Valentine? | Design Mom

Little wooden hearts are just the thing for school mates, friends, family and neighbors. Grab the class list and burn it out. Print off our free Wood You Be My Valentine card, and attach the pin for a sweet, but candy-free, Valentine treat.

Wood You Be My Valentine? | Design Mom

Supplies:

– Wood You Be My Valentine printable — available in pink rectangles, tan rectangles, pink squares, and tan squares
wooden hearts
wood burner tool
metal alphabet for wood burning
brooch pin backs
– hot glue

Wood You Be My Valentine? | Design Mom

1) Use the wood burner tool and the metal alphabet to etch the initials of classmates, friends and other special Valentines onto the wooden hearts.

Our alphabet set measures 5/8″ tall which allowed us to put two perfectly spaced letters on our 2″ hearts. To attach the letters, insert the threaded post on the backside of each letter into the threaded port on the etching tool and twist. It’s really simple. Allow the heat tool to heat the letter. It takes a little time but not too much.

Once the letters are hot enough, take a look at the heart. For two letters, visually divide the heart into two parts, right down the middle. Think about placing one letter on one half and the second letter on the other half. Also, work to set them level. If you only want to do one letter, place it smack dab in the center of the heart.

Press the letter to the wood and hold. Depending on how hot the letter is (depending on how patient you are!), the time it takes to burn will vary. You can lift one corner of the letter and peek how it’s doing. We were able to pull the whole letter and tool off, assess the brand and replace it exactly to burn it a little longer. Once it’s dark enough, it’s done. Repeat with other letters.

To remove the letters, we found it easiest (and most efficient) to use a rag towel to twist the hot letter off and a second rag towel to lay the still hot letter on until it cooled. Use a rag towel because it will burn some when it comes into contact with the stamp and tool. Using another towel to lay them on will protect your work surface from getting burned.

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2) Use hot glue to add a brooch pin on the backside.

Wood You Be My Valentine? | Design Mom

3) Print the Wood You Be My Valentine printable on cardstock. Choose from rectangle cards in pink or tan, or square cards in pink or tan. The square ones have a little arrow to go through the heart.

Wood You Be My Valentine? | Design Mom

4) Attach the wooden hearts to the cards with the brooch pin.

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Give to all your friends!

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Thank you so much, Amy! I think this project is adorable. It makes me excited to pull out my wood burner! And thank you for introducing me to the metal letters. Very cool! I think these little hearts will be so cute on my kids’ backpacks.

What about you, Dear Readers? Have you tried a wood etcher yet? I’m a fan. They’re not expensive and they don’t take up much space.

P.S. — More Valentine posts here!

Credits: Images, styling & text by Amy Christie.

9 thoughts on “DIY: Wood You Be My Valentine? Etched Heart Flair Pins!”

  1. So cute! I think my daughters’ friends would love these for their backpacks! Maybe I can actually be proactive with our Valentine gifts this year, instead of grabbing cards at the last minute :)

  2. Pingback: Heart Blog

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