Making 10 Christmas Ornaments on a Glowforge
Tools & Materials
Here are links to the websites and shops where I found these ornament designs:
https://www.layeredpaperart.com/free-files
https://www.etsy.com/shop/Partyof4Crafts
https://www.etsy.com/shop/LMCore
Project Description
What is a simple laser cut product that everyone loves buying and receiving on Christmas?
This project combines two things that I love doing, supporting other creators and giving away small gifts to people in my local community for free. There are so many simple products that laser cutter owners can design or purchase digital files made by other creators and cut them during the holidays. One of those products is Christmas ornaments, which are always in demand in the winter.
To laser cut a handful of different designs, I decided to research and purchase files from creators in the Glowforge community who have put a lot of hard work into making beautiful products. The idea was to find a handful of funny designs that focus on the past year where the world was in lockdown due to the pandemic and files that have a timeless symbol like a deer, snow man, Christmas tree, snowflakes, and others.
After cutting over 40 of these ornaments, I put out a few posts on my local neighborhood Facebook page and gave them all away in a span of 3 days. It was an amazing experience watching each person light up when they received their ornaments, especially during a once in a lifetime year of being in a lockdown.
Process
While searching for Christmas Ornament files to purchase, I had a few ideas for the kinds of ornaments that I wanted to purchase and make. The first was that the ornaments had to be able to be cut out in one piece; no backers, no paint, no finishes should need to be applied. The second was that the design had to be simple and recognizable as a Christmas themed ornament. Lastly, since I planned to give these ornaments away as gifts to families in my local community, I avoided all ornaments with curse words (i.e. the famous f*** flake that everyone made for 2020). Ultimately, I decided to purchase designs of trees, Santa Claus, Snow men, reindeers, snowflakes, a dog paw with snowflakes, a cat surrounded by snowflakes, and a funny Purell bottle that says “Purhell”.
Once I purchased and downloaded all of the ornament files, I imported them into Adobe Illustrator and organized them on full-size boards that fit in my Glowforge. Then, I copied the designs and rotated them to maximize the amount of ornaments I would be able to cut out of my materials.
After the files were ready to import and laser cut, I loaded the material into my Glowforge and began cutting and engraving the ornaments. It took about an hour to cut and engrave all the ornaments on each board, so a total of 3 hours to cut about 36 ornaments. The ones that took the longest to complete were the snowman and “Purhell” bottles because the engraving required lots of passes to get the depth.
