Staining the tree

Today I trialled a stain on one of the mock up trees that had broken. I used food colouring because it is a lot cheaper than wood stain. On one of the sides there is always a blotchy pattern around the edges where it has been cut. The stain doesn't seep into it straight away but once I worked it with the brush a little it became even.

The first one I did came out a little uneven because I watered the stain down near the end to see what it would turn out like. The stain goes over more evenly when watered down a little, as you can see in the second photo below.

I like the lighter colour better than the dark but I think it could be somewhere in between. The photo below is a trial of a medium red-ish brown which I like best. I even think that we could stain all of the small cut out pieces as well because it really makes them look tidier and shows that time has gone into making and designing the whole project. I think the tree will look good a darker colour than the rest of the pieces even if we do stain them all so the next trial is to stain a full sized tree and see how the pieces look on it all together.