{"id":1439,"date":"2015-05-22T17:25:12","date_gmt":"2015-05-22T17:25:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heather-maclean.com\/?p=1439"},"modified":"2016-03-21T15:36:25","modified_gmt":"2016-03-21T15:36:25","slug":"how-to-quickly-cheaply-age-a-cutting-board-into-a-rustic-vintage-treasure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.heather-maclean.com\/heathermacleancooks\/how-to\/food-photos\/how-to-quickly-cheaply-age-a-cutting-board-into-a-rustic-vintage-treasure\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Quickly Age a Cutting Board into a Rustic, Vintage Treasure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1441\" src=\"http:\/\/heather-maclean.com\/heathermacleancooks\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/board.jpg\" alt=\"board\" width=\"536\" height=\"331\" \/><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Cutting boards are extremely important to food photography as they give height and warmth to a picture. Unfortunately, most of the ones sold today are made of bamboo which while great for the environment and easy on the average knife show up a yucky yellow in photos which makes food look unappetizing.<\/p>\n<p>Gorgeous vintage cutting boards with scars, texture, and deep colors the camera loves are available for a pretty penny. You can get them online for anywhere from $20 before shipping to over $200. Which is why most of us make our own.<\/p>\n<p>Shawnda at <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jasonandshawnda.com\/foodiebride\/archives\/11282\/ \" target=\"_blank\">Confections of a Foodie Bride<\/a><\/strong> has a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jasonandshawnda.com\/foodiebride\/archives\/11282\/ \" target=\"_blank\">wonderful tutorial on how to DIY it<\/a> from scratch using inexpensive planks from the lumber yard. Her using a small hammer to soften the edges is pure genius.<\/p>\n<p>If your not married to a woodworker with a power saw, you can usually find extremely cheap cutting boards at Goodwill or the Salvation Army. I found 3 different sizes last weekend for 50 cents each. The problem is they were all yucky yellow.<\/p>\n<p>Shawnda also has <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jasonandshawnda.com\/foodiebride\/archives\/11310\" target=\"_blank\">a nifty solution for prematurely aging a honey-colored cutting board<\/a> that uses steel wool, vinegar, and tea. The result is beautiful, but it does require letting things sit overnight, and I was looking for a super-speedy solution. Like done-in-10-minutes.<\/p>\n<p>Since I couldn&#8217;t find anything online, I (I&#8217;m about to show my age here) MacGyvered up my own plan, and it worked perfectly. Here&#8217;s how I did it:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1440\" src=\"http:\/\/heather-maclean.com\/heathermacleancooks\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/board1.jpg\" alt=\"board1\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I started by lightly sanding the board to remove the shiny finish. I then, with a 50-cent sponge brush, brushed on a thin layer of dark wood stain ($3 at the local hardware store). I was extra impatient, so I pulled out my hairdryer to hurry things along.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of adding a second coat, I brushed crazy strokes all over the board, let them set without fully drying for couple of minutes, and then wiped them off with a paper towel. (Fair warning &#8212; the wood stain is super sticky if it gets on your hands. I could have worn gloves, but I was too lazy to look for any.)<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1442\" src=\"http:\/\/heather-maclean.com\/heathermacleancooks\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/board2.jpg\" alt=\"board2\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Wiping away the streaks left the board lighter in places, but gave me great texture on the edges, so I did it again.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1443\" src=\"http:\/\/heather-maclean.com\/heathermacleancooks\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/board3.jpg\" alt=\"board3\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/p>\n<p>With the help of my friend Hairdryer, and a couple new scuff marks from my other friend Sander, I had this in just about 15 minutes. And I was happy.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1444\" src=\"http:\/\/heather-maclean.com\/heathermacleancooks\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/board5.jpg\" alt=\"board5\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/p>\n<p>It was still a tiny bit sticky, I&#8217;ll admit, but I was desperate to get a certain photo so I could finish a blog posting, so I immediately put it to work. If you&#8217;re going to put finished food directly on the surface, you might want to use a food-safe finishing wax and allow it dry thoroughly overnight. But sometimes the food you want to photograph won&#8217;t wait. I was only taking a photo of dry pasta, and was delighted to get this and get back to my computer in no time.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1445\" src=\"http:\/\/heather-maclean.com\/heathermacleancooks\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/board4.jpg\" alt=\"board4\" width=\"500\" height=\"329\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heather-maclean.com\/heathermacleancooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heather-maclean.com\/heathermacleancooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heather-maclean.com\/heathermacleancooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heather-maclean.com\/heathermacleancooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heather-maclean.com\/heathermacleancooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1439"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/www.heather-maclean.com\/heathermacleancooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3217,"href":"http:\/\/www.heather-maclean.com\/heathermacleancooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1439\/revisions\/3217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.heather-maclean.com\/heathermacleancooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heather-maclean.com\/heathermacleancooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.heather-maclean.com\/heathermacleancooks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}