Christmas Wine Crate - Finished!

I've finished the wooden crate that's going to be the wrapping for my Dad's Christmas present.

You can see my first post about the wine create here. I tried a few methods before deciding that yes, I really did need a proper wood burning tool.

The tool is basically like a soldering iron that you can screw brass "nibs" to in order to achieve the effect you want.

The crate already has its vineyard's emblem on one side, so that left me with 3 for Christmas messages. The classic "Happy Christmas", "Craciun Fericit" - the same message in Romanian, and "Chateaneuf du Pop" - a joke on the famous Chateaneuf du Pape AOC group of wine.

I'd already started trying to write "Happy" before I had the pyrography tool, but decided to neaten it up with an outline.

Now, you may notice my deliberate spelling mistake of "Craciun" - getting the "i" and "u" the wrong way round. I'll turn the "I" into a serif style letter, and just have to accept that it won't look very good. But my Dad doesn't speak Romanian anyway, so it'll be fine.

Aaaaand... I missed an "e" out of "Chateauneuf", but there's room between the "t" and "a" to fit it in without him ever knowing. I proofread both of these before I started writing and still got them wrong! So annoying!

The crate before being filled with bottles.

Fill her up!

There's a couple of bottles that are too wide at the bottom to fit the wooden supports that keep the wine in place. A little bit of elbow grease with a hacksaw and the edges of the holes were taken off to allow the bottles in more smoothly.

I'll pop a bit of shredded tissue on top of the bottles, et voilà! A pretty stylish case for the wine lover in your life.

Thanks for having a look and hope you enjoy!