Descending Ashtray

I have been playing around with a burnt finish on the bases for flowers.  Although I have been burning the bases for awhile but I have never tried lightly sanding afterwards and I am really happy with the results.  I just took some steel wool and sanded in a circular motion until the surface of the wood was a nice even brown(base on the right).  The I used General Finishes Clear to finish it (base on left in above picture).  By sanding after the burning I feel that I get softer, smoother finish.  I was also getting some cranking along the end grain, so I took some black acrylic paint and mixed it with wood filler.  That solved the problem nicely.