Wood engraves easily and beautifully, and with the various types available, there are endless creative projects you can create using wood or wood products.

Here are a few ideas you may not have thought of.

Cabinet Doors:
Many people would love to have the center or edge panels of their cabinet doors (bedroom furni­ture, entertainment center, kitchen cabinets, china cabinets, etc.) lasered with interesting artwork, a family initial, a family crest or some other design. This works best on solid wood items such as oak, cherry, maple, etc., but you can also laser engrave laminate doors covered with most Formica-like materials. The big limitation here might be the size of the door vs. the size of your laser, although many of today's lasers have a "pass-through" feature that allows you to open the doors on the machine to accommodate oversized items.

Also consider doing inlay work on wood which adds a ton of value to the item and is not as difficult as you might think. You can use it on cabinet doors as well as a variety of other products. Use shell, mother-of-pearl, or plastic to create a family heirloom.

Wooden Boxes:
The world is full of wooden boxes and chests that provide the perfect surface for laser embellish­ments. A few popular items include jewelry chests, humidors (tobacco boxes) and many types of keepsake boxes. Especially attractive to young girls, this option can also be extremely attractive to adults for a wide variety of applications. Women (and girls) love keepsake boxes for storing jewelry, love letters, mementos from special occasions and the like. They can also be used to keep baby keepsakes, military insignia, scouting patches, or a host of other special items. Engraving a person's name or initials along with a heart, praying hands, etc., make these a hot item. The boxes are available from a variety of sources. Some are designed to have a ceramic tile placed in the top. The tile can be laser engraved or replaced with a piece of wood.

Wooden Home Decor:
Epilog Laser's website has a photo of a door crown with an intricate harvest theme in­cluding a pumpkin and lots of wood leaves. It looks complicated at first but is really quite simple since they provide the CorelDRAW files for everything you need. You could also use your laser to cut wood letters for a variety of applications, including signs, wall hangings for kids' bedrooms that spell out their name, a sport, or some meaningful phrase, and decorations for crafts such as a wreath. For example, a popular decorating trend is to display a family initial or monogram on a wall or cabinet.