I have a wild flower garden that works with overcrowding to keep weeds down, but every now and then I destroy plants, because I simply forgot that they were there. Now it is season for spring plants to become less visible, so I made some markers from rests from milling greenwood.

Supplies

Materials:

Small greenwood logs, e.g. for fireplace. In the pictures the darker ones are made with 1.5 year old wood.

Tools

Bandsaw
Normal saw, knife
Lasercutter

Step 1: Mill the Wood

I used a bandsaw to make 6 mm thick pieces. The material that I use here are the rests, the ends of the log or pieces that I cut imprecise. If you never tried, get somebody introduce you to how to use a bandsaw and what to consider for security.

Step 2: Carve & Saw a Rough Outline of the Marker

I used pretty basic tools for that. The pieces are so thin that no special carving knife is needed. The fresher the wood, the easier it is

Step 3: Write the Text

Write the text in a program that can export the format that you need on the lasercutter(e.g. pdf). Use a bold font that meets the character of the wood. Estimate the size of the area where you would like to put the text. Font size 10 pt is approximately 0.353 cm. I used Ravie with font size 40 pt in Inkscape. There it is also easy with the select tool activated, to see the size of the text box.

Step 4: Engrave the Names

You have to check that the corners are where they are supposed to be on the marker. Engrave with high intensity. If your want the dark burnt colour for the text, you need to wait until the wood is dried properly. You can see the difference in the picture.