“To Plant A Garden is to Believe in Tomorrow” is a beautiful quote by Audrey Hepburn. A beautiful & talented artist friend of ours was commissioned to draw and design a digital graphic for us to use just for this project. She oozes talent as you can quite clearly see.
We used 2 species of wood for this project. We used 1 sheet of Aspen .010″ Fleece Back 8.5″ x 11″ Long Grain and 1 sheet of Cherry .025″ Wood Back 8.5″ x 11″ Long Grain.
Printing on Real Wood Paper
While we do recommend Short Grain direction for portrait prints, our Aspen .010″ Fleece Back Long Grain sheet went through the HP ENVY Photo 7855 printer just fine. (The .016″ Paper Back Long Grain did not go through as a Portrait print. Use Short Grain as a Portrait print.)
We get asked all the time about what printer do you recommend. There are far too many printers available for us to test print on every printer. And frankly, we aren’t in the printing business. We just want to bring beautiful, all natural wood sheets into your creative world.
We used a photo printer for this project which is NOT a Laser Printer. We always recommend a Laser Printer or seeking a professional printing company. However, we have been testing the waters with this HP ENVY Photo 7855. It’s doing ok. There is some bleeding on the Aspen, if you look closely. This is why we recommend Laser Printers. Ink Jet printers ink is wet, takes time to dry and during that drying time…the ink can bleed aka follow the wood grains. We always recommend testing with your specific printer. We mention this printer because it has done a really nice job printing on maple and cherry. Aspen is a grainier wood which tends to allow for more ink bleeding.
Sewing on Real Wood Paper
Not only did we go against all odds and use a non-laser printer on this project BUT we also hand sewed the corners. Yep. You heard that right! You can sew Real Wood Paper. Our .010″ thick Fleece back and .016″ thick Paper back sheets can be sewn on a sewing machine! For this project though, we needed a little more exactness on the corners so we opted for hand sewing.
First, we used a guide and needle tool to punch through the wood. Threaded up our needle and away we went!
This project was actually very quick and easy. The finished print size is approx 6″ x 7″. We used Beacon’s 3-in-1 Glue to adhere the Aspen Fleece Back to the Cherry Wood Back prior to sewing the corners. This was maybe a 1 hour project start to finish. Cute. Unique. and Perfect for our Greenhouse.
Print
Cut
Glue
Punch
Sew
Done
