I started by sanding the wood until it was nice and soft so I don’t have to worry about splinters.

Then, using transfer paper between my design and the wood, I traced firmly over the design with a pencil. This left a perfect blueprint of my image directly on wood.

My transfer paper actually had yellow carbon, of all colors, which did not show up the best on my wood, so that’s Lesson Learned #1… Be sure to use red, blue or black transfer paper…