DIY Personalized Table Centerpiece

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

Has it already been a week ago? Time is speeding by!

Only 20 days til Christmas!

Oh my!!

Last weekend my nephew and family were in town, it was so nice to see them! Knowing they wouldn't be here for Christmas, hubby and I wanted to give them one of their gifts.

Of course, I forgot to take a picture before we gave it to them. 

That is so typical of me... :/

Oh well.

This is my niece-in-laws picture she happen to take with her phone. 

This was a joint project with me and hubby.

He cut the wood and put it together. (And did a great job, btw!)

I stained the wood and carved "The Mann Family".

We made this literally in a couple of hours over two days. 

The most time consuming was carving out the name.

Here are the pieces hubby cut. 

Just seeing how they will fit.

I stained the board I was going to work on for the name first.  You can see I was practicing a bit on that piece of scrap.

I ended up staining all the boards ebony, using what I had on hand by Cabot.

You can see the printed name I'm going to transfer onto the stained board. 

I used my time tested method, tracing the words onto the wood.  You can see how I did that when I made my Easter Sign (here). 

I was so nervous doing this project! I was so close to chickening out and just painting it. I'm so glad I didn't!

Tracing the name out... easy!

Carving it out with the Dremel? A bit stressful.  One mistake and it's done.  

I just tried to go slow.  My hand was numb by the time I was done. :)

I did an outline with the smallest bit.

Then I used a larger bit to carve the rest out.

Then I took the sanding bit to smooth some of the letters a bit.  

I was so surprised at how well it came out! 

I wish I had taken a close up picture of the carving.  

I just wanted to get it finished!

Hubby glued and used our nail gun to put it together. Snap! Done!

Complete!  Now time to decorate it.

What's awesome about this kind of centerpiece is you can switch out the decor for each season or holiday.

I put in some battery operated lights, pine garland, a few pine cones, ornaments, bells and a bow. Wa! La!

I think I need to make one of these for my table... maybe after the holidays.  Too busy now! 

You might want to make one for yourself or as a gift like I did!

Blessings,