How far ahead should I order for a holiday?

Custom work runs on bench time, not stock. For the December rush, get the request in by early November; the rest of the year, two to three weeks is a comfortable window.

What exactly do you need from me for a quote?

The occasion, the hard deadline, the size, whether it lives indoors or out, the exact wording with spelling confirmed in your own writing, any must-include imagery, and a budget. That list is the whole article above.

Custom wood is cut and burned for one person and can't go back on the table. The deposit covers the bench time if a job is cancelled after work starts; the balance is due on pickup or before posting.

Explainer · 6 min read

Ordering custom wood burned gifts

Personalized wood burned gifts, made in Cleveland. What it costs in time, what I need from you before I switch the tool on, and what I will not burn.

A custom wood burned gift is not a print run. Each one starts as a piece of driftwood foraged off a Lake Erie beach, cut, cured and read before a single line goes on it. That means the timeline is real and the information you give me up front decides whether the finished piece is right. This page is the plain version of that conversation, so you can have it with yourself before you email.

Lead times, honestly

In stock at the booth: pendants, emblems and sage sets go home the same day. Nothing to plan.
Custom pendant, initials or motif emblem: one to two weeks from the moment wording and size are agreed. The blank has to be cut and cured before it can be burned.
Custom sign or wall piece: two to four weeks, longer if you need a board size I have to wait on. Big driftwood arrives when the lake decides, not when I do.
Anything with a hard date: add a week on top of the above. I would rather hand it to you early than explain a miss.

For the holidays, the cutoff for custom pendants and emblems is the end of the first week of December, and the cutoff for signs and wall pieces is mid-November. After those dates I keep taking orders, but they get burned in January and I will say so in writing rather than let you hope. If you are inside the cutoff, the fastest route is still the booth: buy a finished piece off the tray and it is done.

What I need from you

Seven things. Send them in one email and the quote comes back the same week; send them in pieces and the clock does not start until the last one lands.

The occasion. It changes what suits — a wedding date reads differently from a leaving present.
The hard deadline. Not the day you would like it, the day after which it is useless.
Size. Pendant, emblem, or a board — for a board, the actual dimensions in inches or centimetres.
Indoor or outdoor. Beeswax on bare wood is not a weather finish. Outdoors changes what I will agree to make.
The exact text, spelling confirmed. Type it out again in your own words in the email, and if it is a name I do not recognise, send a photo of it in your own handwriting. I burn what you write, and a burn cannot be undone.
Any must-include imagery. A coastline, a dog's ear, a band's mark. Send a photo or a sketch rather than a description.
Your budget. Say the number. It tells me whether to quote a pendant or a plank, and it saves us both a round of email.

The reason I press on spelling is mechanical. Pyrolysis changes the fibre rather than sitting on top of it, so there is no erasing a wrong letter — the options are building around it or sanding the surface off and starting again on a fresh blank. Letters also want about 8mm of height to stay open under the tip. If your wording will not fit legibly at the size you asked for, I will tell you that before you pay, not after.

Quote and deposit

Standard pieces are priced on the list: a pendant on hemp lace is $20, the pendant alone $15, a car-mirror emblem $20, a sage set $10. Signs and wall pieces are quoted per piece, because the price depends on the wood I can find at that size and how much line work the letters need. The quote covers the blank, the burning, the beeswax finish from the family farm's hives, and one round of adjustment to the layout before I switch the tool on.

For quoted work I take 50% as a deposit once you approve the layout and wording, with the balance due when the piece is finished — at the booth or before it ships. The deposit is what buys the wood and holds the bench time. If I cannot make the piece for any reason on my end, the deposit comes back in full. If you change the wording after the deposit and the blank is already burned, that is a new blank and a new quote; I will always tell you which situation we are in before doing anything.

What I decline

I decline requests involving hate speech, offensive imagery or otherwise inappropriate content, and I do not take the job and then quietly stall. You get a plain no by email and no deposit is taken. This includes work where the symbol is the point rather than the piece: I sell the Elder Futhark runes, including Algiz — elk-sedge, protection, the raised hand — and I draw them plain and in warm context. I do not make Black Sun or Sonnenrad work, and I do not double Sowilo.

One more honest limit: I sell the object, not an effect. A rune pendant is hand-burned driftwood with a letter on it, and a sage bundle is garden-grown sage tied with hemp. If a piece is meant as a gift for someone who will read more into it than that, wonderful — but nothing I make is claimed to do anything.

How to start

Email hello@doodle-wood.com with those seven answers, or find the booth at a Cleveland market and say it out loud instead — that is usually faster, because I can hand you three blanks and you can point at the grain you like. Either way, you will get a straight answer about whether the idea works at the size you want before any money changes hands.

Nature made the design. I'm just complimenting it.

Asked at the booth

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A note when new pieces come off the bench, and where the booth will be next. Sent when there is something to say, not on a schedule.