Cute Things to Engrave

Turn a plain bar of soap into a cute gift with simple engraving techniques.

Engraving is a lovely way to personalize items that you want to give as gifts or use as home decor. Large-scale engraving can require complicated and expensive tools, but if you stick with small projects and easy-to-carve materials you can have fun making all sorts of cute items without much fuss. Engraving is suitable for a wide variety of materials, not just the common choices of wood and stone.

Soap

It's easy to engrave soap with all sorts of cute designs. Choose a soap with a pretty color and a sweet scent. Etch the pattern of your choice onto both sides of your soap with a large needle. Flowers and love-hearts work well and are simple to do. Use a blunt knife to scrape away larger areas and a craft knife to create sharper lines and designs on each side.

Glass

Make cute candle holders out of plain drinking glasses to give as an anniversary gift. Engrave the couple's names and their wedding anniversary date inside a heart. To complete this craft properly, purchase a simple glass engraving kit from a craft shop. This should include basic etching tools and a white glass pencil for tracing your design onto the glass. Draw your design on a piece of white paper, tape it inside the glass and trace over it with the white glass pencil. You can then engrave the design using the kit tools.

Bark

Create cute, natural party invitations or thank you notes by engraving them on bark. Peel large, postcard-sized strips of bark off fallen trees or logs. Do not take bark from living trees, which will damage or even kill them. For an extra special touch, look for unusually colored bark, such as silver birch. Use the smooth side of the bark for your engraving. Write your message with chalk, engrave over the lettering with a pointed craft knife and brush off any excess chalk.

Carrots

Engrave carrots with flower designs to liven up a dinner party salad with cute vegetables. Peel a large carrot and cut it into slices. Press out basic flower shapes using small, flower-shaped cookie cutters. Engrave a circle in the center of each flower with the point of a sharp knife, then engrave lines from the outside to the inside to create petal outlines.

References

• Redbook: Easy-To-Do Glassware Engraving
• Thai Carving: Carrot Flowers