Monogrammed Wood Slice Ornaments

Being a southern girl at heart (Alabama roots, y'all!) and a prep school grad, I adore all things monogrammed. Sheets? Check. Bathrobe? Check. Ice bucket? Check. Heck, throw some initials on a trash can and I'd take it. I'm just a big fan of personalized things. So when I got this idea in my head to make some wood slice ornaments as gifts for friends and family, I thought that a monogram would be the perfect way to give them a personal touch.

Wood slices are really easy to make out of round logs if you have a miter saw. I, of course, do not have such a tool, but you know who does? My father-in-law. Thankfully, he's always game for my ideas - even the crazy ones (boy do I have one of those to tell you about soon!). Wood slices are pretty tame though, and in fact, we cut a whole mess of 'em back in January to make a wood wreath. So when C and I were with his family over Thanksgiving, I took full advantage of my access to power tools and did a few projects, including this one.

I only needed a few supplies for these pretty little ornaments:

• Wood slices (purchased or cut with a miter saw)
• Martha Stewart Multi-Surface Gold Paint (*affiliate link)
• Paint brush
• Painter's White Paint Marker (*affiliate link)
• Drill
• Ribbon

Cutting the wood slices was the hardest part of this project only because I had to wait until I had access to a miter saw. If you've got one of those, this project will be a complete breeze!

First, I painted the wood slices gold using Martha Stewart's multi-surface craft paint and y'all, I LOVE this paint. I had heard some good things about it, and it really is fantastic. I only needed one coat for the wood slices and it dried really quickly. I only bought the one tube to try it out, but I will definitely be investing in some more colors from that line. Martha knows her stuff. (Oh, and just for full disclosure, that's my own opinion and I bought the paint with my own dollars - with a coupon of course :) ).

Then I Googled an image of a block print monogram font and freehanded the monograms with a white paint pen. Here's the font I used:

{Preppy and Personalized}

I also have to rave about the white paint pen I used. It had excellent coverage and the paint flowed easily, but not too easily if you know what I mean. It was more like using a marker. I've had bad experiences with paint pens in the past, and this one is good.

Here's the transformation from bare wood to monogrammed:

To make them into ornaments, I just drilled a little hole in the top center of the wood. Of course, by the time I was ready for hole-drilling, I was back in our tiny city apartment, so I created a little sawdust catcher out of a shoebox so I wouldn't have wood bits everywhere :). I put a scrap piece of 2x4 in the bottom so I could drill a hole all the way through the wood slice, but not through our floor. Good decision, right? Oh the things I do to make projects happen...

To finish them off, I strung a skinny, white satin ribbon through the hole - then they were ready for hanging!

Two of these are gifts for friends, so they won't be staying on our tree, but that one on the bottom is ours. I couldn't help but make one for us when I saw how nicely they turned out!

These make great gifts for friends and family, hostess gifts, etc. Tie one on a wine bottle, and you're set for the next Christmas party you attend!

I hope y'all are enjoying this week's round of handmade Christmas crafts! If you missed the others, you can check out the wedding invitation ornaments and gift tags I shared earlier. Tomorrow I'll be back with a round up of some favorites from around the web. If you've got a good one you'd like for me to include, this is the last call for you to send it my way! Email me at mayricherfullerbe{at}gmail.com

Oh and P.S. These would also make great coasters if you didn't drill a hole in the top! A set of 6 or 8 would be a perfect gift. Personalize them with each family member's initials and make a couple of extras for guests. ;)

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