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Carving Flower Magnets: Rainbow Magic

I enjoy carving flowers with 5 petals. They are 1.5 inches (4 cm) in diameter. I usually attach a small magnet or a pin to the back. These colorful carving flower magnets can be used on a fridge or a whiteboard. They make a great gift to family members, friends, coworkers, and sometimes even strangers who I find kind, helpful, or respected. If you got your flower and read this article drop me an email; without it, I would never reply and we may never meet again.

A picture of a carved flower magnet with 5 petals. Each petal is painted in a different color.

This project was inspired by a Russian tale “Rainbow Flower” by Valentin Katayev (See more details here). A child in the tale/movie gets a magic flower where each petal has a different color. Every petal can make any wish come true. It is a very kind story about meaningful and meaningless wishes. I wish (and try my best) that every person gets a colorful magic flower!

Carving a flower requires several steps. I transfer the flower pattern on a piece of basswood board 1/4 inch (6 mm) thick and use a scroll saw to separate a flower from the board. I use a knife with a straight blade to carve the flower perimeter and several gouges to carve the rest of the flower.

Carving flower in progress. The picture shows 8 steps of carving a flower.
Carving flower in progress

Carving a flower may be a little challenging because of the wood grain. The goal is to carve five identical petals but every petal requires different cuts against the grain to achieve the same petal shape. True, with this carving project I am forced to cut against the grain sometimes but that just challenges me a little – never stops.

I use a knife, three gouges, and a V-tool during the flower carving. Everything is done using hand tools; power-assisted tools are used only for drilling a small recess for a magnet and sometimes for branding on the back (manual or laser engraving).

Tools to carve flowers: two gouges and a V-tool.
Tools to carve flowers

I use a drill press with a Forstner bit 1/4″ (6 mm) to drill a hole so a rare earth magnet fits well. I used to glue magnets before but found that glue sometimes fails over time. Epoxy became my choice to embed rare-earth magnets or pin hardware into my carvings.

I use acrylic paint diluted with water to paint each petal. I try painting several flowers at a time to save time on cleanup and context switches. Sometimes I leave the flowers unpainted and use an oil finish to highlight the wooden grain.

It takes me 2-3 hours to make a flower. Half of that time I spend carving and the rest on branding, painting, and finishing. It takes a few minutes to make a paper box — the packaging makes the carving more presentable.

Two flower magnets; one in a paper box and one without.
Flower Magnet
Paper box for the flower. Shows 6 paper box templates printed on a sheet of thick paper, X-ACTO knife and circle cutters.

I print the blueprint of six boxes on a sheet of thick paper. Cut them out on a cutting mat – it is pretty fast and easy as the lines are straight. After that, I bend the sides and glue them together.

Carving these little flowers is very relaxing. At the same time, this project is challenging enough to perfect carving wood grain in various directions; still, it is a quick wood carving project. If you would like to carve this flower here is my free wood carving pattern:

Wood carving pattern - flower magnet. The image shows a printable pattern along with a picture of a fully carved flower.
Wood carving pattern – flower magnet

At the end, these finished flowers make perfect personalized gifts.

And if you got your magic flower, make a wish and enjoy! Happy carving!

Comments

4 responses to “Carving Flower Magnets: Rainbow Magic”

  1. dan plubell Avatar
    dan plubell

    Hi,
    What kind of paint do you use for these flowers?

    Thanks,
    Dan

    Reply
    1. Roman Chernikov Avatar
      Roman Chernikov

      I use acrylic paint diluted with water. I used “BASICS” brand to paint the flowers before and it was very good. Now I use “GOLDEN” brand and I like it more as I think I get brighter colors. Also, the latter is easier to dilute as the paint comes in liquid form instead of paste; the price is a disadvantage but I only need five or six colors – sometimes I use pink instead of red for one of the petals. I still like my “BASICS” set of 48 paint tubes that I have as it helps me to experiment with colors without mixing colors every time.

      I dilute heavily and apply two or three coats. I found that helps to distribute paint more evenly and keep the paint layer thin enough so the wood grain still can be visible, especially with the oil finish.

      The flower in the pictures is painted using “BASICS” brand of acrylic paint and finished with a gloss acrylic spray or gloss polyurethane. Thank you, Dan, for the question!

      Reply
  2. Birchi Avatar
    Birchi

    Nice Article on wood carving and carving wood furniture. Thanks for writing such a good article on carving wooden furniture items for this world. Your efforts unbelievable. I am looking to try these tips for my wooden furniture on my website http://www.birchi.in People always try direct method but most of time these trick don’t works. Your tips are helpful for the person to make good blog posting for their websites or blog.

    Reply
    1. Roman Chernikov Avatar
      Roman Chernikov

      Thank you for your comment! You are right, decorating furniture with such flowers may look nice. Please let me know when you try. Thanks!

      Reply

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