Wood Burning Art Trash to Treasure Piece.

Wood Burning Art Trash to Treasure Piece.

You know how I love to take old stuff and repurpose it so here’s my take on a Wood Burning Art Trash to Treasure Piece. We recently broke a lamp at the house and so I decided to incorporate it into an art piece instead of throwing it away. I broke up the pieces, dremeled them, then added them into a wood burned piece. The alcohol inks really added a lot of color. Watch me transform this broken glass.

wood-burning-trash-to-treasure1 — Broken Lamp leftovers

The glass has a great pattern and texture. I don’t want to just trash that. These pieces are also very much like ceramic tile and I think I can add alcohol inks to the tile. I’m going to break these larger chunks into smaller pieces, dremel and add color to create a mosaic type of art piece.

Breaking the Glass

First things first, I have to break up this glass into smaller pieces and dremel the edges to make them safe. I put my safety goggles on and I grabbed a paper towel and my hammer. I covered the pieces with the paper towel to prevent smaller bits from flying up into my face. Then, I just grabbed the hammer and started slamming these pieces. It was harder than I thought it was going to be. I had to put some muscle into, but I finally got the pieces small enough.

Once they were a good size, I took out the dremel (still wearing my safety goggles) and I shaved down all the edges, front and back, to make sure there were no sharp edges left. I don’t want these glass bits to be dangerous. The dremel did the trick and made all the edges nice and smooth.

Burning the Wood

Here’s where the wood burning comes into play for this Wood Burning Art Trash to Treasure Piece. I have a 9” x 11” piece of poplar wood here and I’ve already sketched my design onto the canvas. Before adding the glass pieces, I’m going to burn the design. And I first start with the outline. I always burn the outline first and then fill in with texture.

I’m using my Burnmaster Eagle Pro and I’m going to start with a straight edge tip and then move onto a writing tip that is perfect for filling in with texture. The Burnmaster is a very hot burner, so I’m burning at a level 2 Heat Setting to outline. Also poplar is very soft, so that also adds to the need for a lower heat setting.

Once I’m done with the outlining, I switch to filling in the shapes with texture. I like to use a straight line texture. I feel like it gives it a little something extra instead of just a plain flat burn.

Arranging the Pieces

Before I can add color, I have to figure out which glass bits I’m going to use. I chose the glass pieces by arranging them within the center shape on the wood canvas.

wood burning art trash to treasure1 — Burned Frame on Wood Canvas

wood burning art trash to treasure2 — Select Glass Pieces

You can see from the pic that I burned a center frame for the glass to reside, and I needed to make sure the glass fits within it. I choose my pieces and aligned them together on my paper towel, so now I can start to add color.

Adding Color

I want to do a gradient effect of red to blue, so I’m separating the pieces in a way that lets me add color in sections. I’ve got my alcohol inks ready to drop and an alcohol spray bottle ready to help spread the color. All I’m doing is dropping alcohol ink in sections, then spraying it with an alcohol blending solution. The blending solution helps spread the ink outwards. It creates a really cool effect.

Now that they are dry and ready to go, I’m simply rearranging the glass bits onto the wood within the burned frame I created earlier.

And you see from the pic that the color has a nice gradient of red – blue from corner to corner.

wood burning art trash to treasure3 — Putting the Glass in Place

Gluing them down

Now they are placed perfectly, I’m going to glue them down. I’m using Titebond Quick and Thick glue to keep them in place. I’m just picking them up one by one, adding glue and then placing them back into place. That way I can make sure the placement and design stays in tact.

Once it’s completely dry, I varnish it in two steps using this Kamar Varnish and UV Archival Varnish. The Kamar Varnish goes on first and protects the color. The UV Archival Varnish goes on second and it protects the color from fading.