Winnie the Pooh Cheese Board

This cheeseboard is a gift for my nan. She is very poorly and not eating so much. She loves Winnie the Pooh (the books with the original EH Shepherd illustrations - she is a saintly figure who loves everyone in the world, but she despises the Disney version and woe betide anyone who gives her a Disney gift by mistake!) so I made her this cheese board to cheer her up a little. It uses laser cutting and a shop bought chopping board (rubberwood from Ikea) so was a quick and easy gift to make.

I downloaded a picture and opened it in Illustrator. Using the live trace function I turned it into a vector file then opened it in LaserCut. Because of the intricacy of the resulting vector, I opted to cut rather than engrave the design into the chopping board.

I then sent the file to the laser cutter and allowed it to cut the design. In spite of the intricacy it engraved quite prettily!

I then sanded the top surface quickly just to remove a few sooty marks left by the laser cutter. Once that was done, the chopping board was complete. I gave it to my nan, recommending that she give it a wipe down with oil every now and then to keep it looking nice. She says it is too nice to use, though, so probably it won't need it!