Woodburned Pendants

I've always loved jewelry that is made with natural and easily found materials (such as wood and shells), but I had never actually made some of my own. When I was tidying up some scrap pieces of wood in the workshop, I saw a small piece of wood that was the perfect size for a pendant. So I grabbed it up and got to work! (anything to avoid cleaning. :P )

Materials:
Small piece of wood

Sandpaper

Drill

Woodburning Set

Pencil

The piece of wood that I grabbed was already cut down the the right size. If you have a larger piece of wood that you want to cut down you will have to add a saw to the materials list. :)

When you have your pendant size piece of wood and other materials you are ready to go to the next step.

Sand your pendant until all surfaces are smooth, starting with a coarse grit and slowly changing to finer grit paper. I sanded the corners of my pendant so that it would have a smooth shape instead of being just a rectangle.

Drill a hole into your pendant. This hole needs to be large enough for the cord or jump ring to fit through it. Make a small pencil mark where you would like to make your hole and then line the drill up with your mark.

Using a pencil, lightly draw the design you want onto the pendant. You could always skip this step and freehand your burning, but I like to plan ahead. It's much easier to erase a pencil line than a woodburned line.

For this pendant I chose a nautilus design.

Using the sketch as a guide, burn your design onto the pendant.

Using the universal tip, I made the background dark, and I burned the edges and back of the pendant as well.

Using the tapered tip, I used pointillism to make the lines of the nautilus. I also made a small initial signature on the back of the pendant.

Using the shading tip, I added some shading to the nautilus shell.

To finish off your project you could add stains or finishes. Just make sure that they will be safe to be against your skin when they are dried. I chose to keep my pendants free of stains or finishes/

When your pendant is complete you can add any hardware that you will need to make it into a necklace. I looped a leather cord through my pendants.

I took some time to make a pair of matching earring to go with my necklace.

This project was a lot of fun for me, so I also made a second pendant. :)