By Jennifer Theurer
The gift of a laser engraver gave Stefanie Lane and her husband, Ian, an avenue to express their creativity after they got married in 2017 and they’ve been creating custom items ever since.
One of their more popular items is cutting boards featuring favorite recipes. The crowning touch of the Lane’s cutting boards is that they feature the handwriting from the original recipe too.
“I hand trace each letter,” Stefanie said. “I’ve done some many I can tell what generation the person who wrote it is from based on the handwriting style.”
A family favorite recipe written on paper often gets a lot of use. Stefanie said the difficulty of tracing the recipes includes ingredients that have been splashed onto the surface and ink that has faded with time.
Unlike a paper recipe card, the Lane’s cutting boards will last several generations. Stefanie says they sometimes buy their boards in bulk but often use boards made by her father-in-law Paul Lane. She says they prefer working with maple, but that Paul likes to work with any kind of wood.
Their talents aren’t limited to wood either as their equipment can engrave acrylic, metal and marble surfaces as well. Stefanie said they will also be able to embroider those treasured recipes onto dish towels in the near future.
