Playing with the new Wood Paper

Wingdoodle has lots of new products and the new wood paper is exquisite. It is wood, sliced into paper. There are 2 thicknesses, thin (think stiff cardstock) or thick (like sheets of balsa wood). Wingdoodle has 2 varieties, cherry and birch. The cherry has rich red undertones which makes a great earthy background for drawing and stamping. The birch is pale and subtle, but still has the wood grain.
I immediately tried a few techniques. First, I stamped with dye inks. The wood took the stamping beautifully with no bleeding of the ink. I stamped with a fine etched image - the pinecone on the left and with a more "rustic" image on the right. Both came out beautifully.

The wood paper can be cut with regular paper scissors or can be die cut. I used a die cut machine and tried to do 2 sheets at once. This almost worked. But, I got much cleaner cuts doing just one sheet at a time.

Next, I tried using distress inks. The wood paper took the distress inks beautifully, with the grain of the wood still showing. The ink coverage is not opaque, it is translucent, so the natural wood grain shows. I like this. I am guessing that if you added many coats of ink, you wouldn't see much grain, but I wanted the beauty of the wood to be obvious. I used just a hint of the red distress ink - for a lady bug's body and the yellow ink for the bee's torso. I like how they came out.

I did try and draw on the paper with a micro permanent marker. The marker did bleed. I used this to my advantage, by making veins in the leaves of the flower brooch below.

I also used this in outlining the bee's stripes. Since the marker bled on the wood paper, I would note this when drawing or making zentangles on the wood paper.
Also, there is a "warning" on the back of the paper - "The tendency of wood veneer to curl is natural and does not affect it's usability in any way."

So, taking advantage of this natural property, I made the flower brooch above. Now, when I made it, the petals didn't curl naturally! Go figure. So, I simply cupped the layers in my hand to form the shape. I did this about 5 times with each layers and it seems to stay that way now!

Lastly, I made this two sided tag using brown paper and stamps - all found at Wingdoodle. I stuck with the "organic" colors, the earthtones and the twine for the tag.

Wingdoodle has a bunch of stamps following the "earthy theme" including animals, foliage, fish and fossils! All of these would be great with the wood paper.

I can't wait to try making another brooch using the THICK wood paper.

The paper comes in 3 sizes - small, medium 8.5" x 11" and large sheets. I used the medium sheets and found that I have some leftover.