Branding Your Wood Projects

150 years from now, a little kid is going to be rummaging around in the attic of my house, and she's going to find an old birdhouse that says SusanYoung1982 on the bottom. She'll run downstairs to her Mommy, clutching the old dusty birdhouse, and ask "Mommy, who is SusanYoung1982?" And Mommy will say, teary-eyed, "Why that's your great-great grandma's birdhouse! She made that!" And she'll call all the relatives over and they will all reminisce about how creative Granny was.

Or, another scenario, Mommy will say, "Ew, throw that dirty thing away and go wash your hands. We don't talk about Granny."

Either way, some people like to brand their work, and I have a $20 way to do that.

Step 1: Print Out Your Text

To print out your logo or name or whatever you want to use to brand your work, you will use Microsoft Word and a printer with a toner cartridge.

Open up a new word document, go to the Insert tab, and click on Text Box, and click on simple text box. That will create a text box, in which you can type whatever you like. I typed SusanYoung1982. You can alter your font and size to be whatever you like. Go crazy.

Right click inside the box, go all the way down the menu to Format Shape. Then find Shape Options, Effects, 3D Rotation, and type in 180 in the box that says X rotation. That should make your text backwards.

Print this onto a sheet of paper. Cut it out with scissors.

Now take a breather.

Step 2: Get Out Your Handy Dandy Heat Tool

This is a Weller brand electric heating tool (soldering iron?) that I purchased for about $20. It comes with all sorts of attachments I will never use. The important attachment is the flat thing shown in the picture. It screws in. Plug it in, place your piece of paper upside down and just roll the tool over the paper for about 3 minutes until the ink transfers to the wood. It will smell like something's burning.

SIDE NOTE: Unplug after use. There's no on/off switch on this tool.

Step 3: Branded !

No one will ever have to wonder who built that cool birdhouse that no birds ever use. (I even added some starter twigs to save the birds some time, but so far no takers. I did see a wasp go in there the other day!)

Side note: I don't brand my work. However, if I was ever in the business of mass-producing birdhouses, and wanted to keep my costs down, I would definitely use this clever method.