Guest "books"

Something with archival ink would be best for the wood! we also had a wooden guest book and the maker of it suggest pens with archival ink and it worked beautifully!

It depends on the wood and if you treated it or not. If you have a piece leftover I would paint it like you did these and then take it to Michaels where you can get out lots of different markers. That’s what I did with mine.

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I agree with Cyndy. The right markers are going to be completely dependent on how the wood is finished. If it's not sealed, beyond stain and paint, many markers will "bleed" into the grain of the wood. If it's completely sealed with a polyurathane-type finish, you'll need a different type of marker to ensure the ink adheres and dries properly. I'd do what Cyndy suggested and make a sample board, with the exact same finishing techniques you used on your signature boards, then go to Michael's (ours has tons of different types of markers in open bins, so it's easy to test different options). That way you can figure out the best type of ink, colors, and the fineness of the tip that will give you the results you want. Daughter used Jenga blocks as her guestbook, and we went and tested pens to find the ones that would work best -- some bled into the grain, others were too thick and resulted in being too blobby and hard to read, etc. It was kind of like Goldilocks trying to find the ones that were "just right." Good luck!

PS -- your boards are beautiful!

These are beautiful Rebecca! I can't believe that you made them yourselves! Well done!!

What style do you want them to have in the end? Do you have some scrap pieces of wood leftover that you can test out some different options to see what works best with the material?

I wish we had scraps. We went to a workshop to make them and they provided the materials. The backs are finished the same so we can play with that!