Here is a lasercut sugar skull pendant – Happy Halloween!
OK, sugar skulls are traditionally more of a ‘Day of the Dead‘ thing than Halloween, but what the heck 🙂
Lasercutters: Can’t be bothered to design your own sugar skull? Why not buy a licence to use someone else’s design? (That link above is to a post I wrote a while ago, about why and how you can fast-forward your lasercutting business by using stock images and designs.)
That’s actually what I did in this case. The design is brilliant and so detailed, and etches really well – so why re-invent the wheel? I bought the extended licence and now I am able to cut and sell this design in my own business. As well as Halloween lasercut sugar skull pendants and earrings, I’m also hoping to adapt it into a papercut version. That might take a while though. Maybe by next Halloween…
I got this particular sugar skull design from Vectorstock (that’s an affiliate link, by the way. Not that I’ve yet made any money from any of my affiliate links, but they are only a minor part of this blog – I just enjoy sharing (and discovering) lasercutting skills and news!)
The best thing about clear acrylic jewellery is that it goes with anything! It’s like wearing a chameleon. Hmm. I might make one of those, one day…
(Continuing my papercutting project – trying to adapt and hand-cut projects based on all of the designs in “922 Decorative Vector Ornaments” by Dover Books.) None of the designs in the book have names, they just have numbers. So because this design looks like a couple of bunches of grapes and a dangly vine-y thing, I’ve naturally called it “Grapes and Vine”.
(Note: some of the links below are affiliate links. If you’d like to find out more then please check out my policies page.)
Grapes and Vine Papercutting K726
Design number 726 in the book was a challenge. (Sorry about the out-of-focus image, by the way. I’ll try to take a better version one day, but at least the closeup version is OK.) It’s got very very thin lines to cut for the vine-y bits, and then lots of very small, very curved sections (i.e. the grape-looking bits). I tackled these with a new scalpel blade, because by now I have got enough experience in papercutting to know that small round objects and thin lines should automatically make me reach for a fresh blade.
Closer up:
Even Closer up
I did tidy the design up a bit after I’d cut it, and overall I’m quite pleased with it. However, when you look at it really close up, you can see the places on most of the grapes where I’ve changed position of the blade or paper mid-cut. (See below, circled in red…):
The perfectionist in me obviously doesn’t like this. And yet the positive, celebratory, skill-learning, “evolving” person in me is very pleased that there are a couple of grapes where this effect isn’t as noticeable. (Plus this is VERY close up, and probably not even noticeable in ‘real life’!)
But the skill-learning, “evolving” person in me is also wondering if it is possible to improve my technique even more. If I keep practising and learning about papercutting techniques, might I eventually get to a stage where I can cut pieces without these little blips showing?
I think it would feel very satisfying to know that I had the skills to cut a ‘perfect’ design.
On the other hand, a laser cutting machine can already cut everything perfectly – and also much more quickly – and so is there any point in me trying to be perfect? And what if it looked perfect this close up, but then at a further level of magnification there were still some flaws that showed up? Where should I draw the line?!
OK – I think I’ve come to a conclusion. I am going to aim for “excellent” rather than “perfect”. Because perfection, as I’ve just realised above, is impossible anyway. There will always be one further magnification that can show more errors.
Mind you, what does “excellent” mean? Oh dear. Here we go again…
Do you have any advice about improving my cutting (e.g. to avoid making those little marks when I change the position of the paper or the blade)? You can chip in via the comments page, or Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram.
(Still working on the papercutting project where I’m adapting and hand-cutting my way through the designs in the “922 Decorative Vector Ornaments” book.) I’ve called this one “Art Nouveau Waterlily Flower” but as I explain below, I’m not 100% convinced that it actually is a waterlily…
(Note: some of the links below are affiliate links. If you’d like to find out more then please check out my policies page.)
Art Nouveau Waterlily Flower Papercutting K118
Design number 118 in the book is a nice little waterlily. Or maybe a lotus flower. Or some other flower. Now that I look at it again, I’m not convinced it’s a waterlily because waterlily leaves are the classic ‘lily pads’ that frogs sit on, aren’t they? Whereas these leaves are small and pointy (or long and sinuous). Oh well, maybe I could convince myself that it’s a waterlily if I think that the little pointy bits are its roots, and the long sinuous bits are representations of the water that the flower is sitting in.
I did tidy the design up a bit after I’d cut it, but it’s a bit ‘lumpy’ in places. Overall though, I really like this one. I can definitely see myself using it in a future project as part of a design.
Closer up:
I cut this one while listening to Mark Dawson’s Self Publishing Show podcast (previously the Self Publishing Formula show). Very useful information!
Any comments about the design (like what the heck kind of flower it is), or advice about improving my cutting? You can chip in via the comments page, or Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram.
What is a “sprue”, and why should I use sprues with my lasercutting designs?
(This is another article in “Money-Saving Lasercutting Tips” – a free tutorial series that demonstrates effective and efficient lasercutting techniques. Tip #3 is all about those awful moments when you watch your precision-cut laser pieces drop down into the guts of the machine … and how to avoid those moments in future.)
Definition of a sprue
Sprues are most commonly seen in injection-moulded plastic toys. For a fuller description check out the Wikipedia definition, but briefly:
In the image below, there are little links that connect the plastic toy components to the frame. These are the sprues. They are created as part of the moulding process, but the useful secondary function of sprues is that they hold the components securely in position within the plastic frame, until you twist or cut the components out. So below, the pieces stay safely in place until the user needs them, rather than rattling around in a box or falling on the floor and getting lost.
Why do I need to use sprues when I’m cutting with a laser?
In laser cutting projects, you often need to cut light materials such as paper or card. But because the machines often blow and/or suck air during the cutting process, it’s very easy for a lovely piece of personalised wedding card to just fly away while you look on in horror.
It’s also really common to need to cut very small pieces from plastic or wood. But if they are smaller than the holes in the cutting bed of the laser machine, the pieces often fall through the holes as they have been cut. Then you either have to fish the pieces out of the cutting bed, or cut them again. This can potentially be a big waste of time and money.
Oh no! Where have three of my little circles gone?
This will happen to all lasercutter users at least once, but not everyone knows what to do to avoid it.
It might seem like it doesn’t matter very much because they are only tiny pieces and you can always cut more of them. But in the example image above I have lost 75% of my pieces. And what started out as a cutting job of only a few seconds, has now turned into either a search-and-rescue mission to retrieve the three little circles, or a waste of more time and material because I need to cut more pieces.
So we therefore need a way to cut the pieces that automatically stops them falling down or blowing away.
One solution is to use sprues, and to include them in the cutting design right from the start.
When to Use Sprues
Generally speaking, use sprues if the piece to be cut is less than 1cm squared, and anytime you are cutting a design from a piece of paper.
How to Design Sprues
You can create sprues very quickly and easily in most vector-based drawing software (e.g. Photoshop or CorelDraw). I happen to use CorelDraw, but the principles are the same for most other apps/programs.
For most lasercutting projects, a sprue is just going to be a small break in the cutting line. It should be:
Big enough that the cut piece remains connected to the paper/wood/plastic
Small enough that the cut piece can be pulled or pushed out of the sheet of paper/wood/plastic by hand
There are two main ways to create them. The first is to ‘manually’ make a tiny break in the cutting line, and the second is to use the Weld function to make the break.
Method 1: Make a ‘manual’ break in the cutting line
Step 1) Make sure that you can edit curves and manipulate/add nodes on the cutting path of the design. (In CorelDraw the “Shape Tool” lets you do this.)
Note: If you can’t see any nodes to edit, you may need to convert the shape to curves first (e.g. by right-clicking the mouse and selecting “Convert to Curves”):
2) Zoom in really close to the object (e.g. so that a 3mm line fills the whole screen), then add two new nodes as close to an existing node as you can manage:
3): Select the middle node of the group of three nodes, then break the path of the curve. (e.g. by right-clicking and choosing “Break Apart”):
Screenshot from CorelDraw: breaking a curve
4) That middle node should have broken in two, so take one of the two resulting nodes and drag it about half a millimetre outside the curve. Then do the same for the other new node. This creates a small break in the cutting line, so that when you cut the piece it should now remain fixed in place until you’re ready to push or tear it from the material you were cutting.
Screenshot from CorelDraw with broken curve zoomed in
Screenshot of object with sprue at the top
5) Use the laser cutter to cut out the shape.
The object can now be pushed or pulled out of the sheet of material that it was cut from.
(You may need a knife or scissors to help cut it free, and a file or blade to cut off any extra material left over.)
Extra material at the top of the flower can be cut off with scissors
Conclusion
Using sprues helps laser cutters to save time, money, and annoyance. Instead of wailing in anguish as you watch another tiny precision-cut object fly away or disappear down a hole, consider using this little ‘design hack’ to avoid those problems.
Basically, whenever you’re lasercutting and you think “tiny” or “paper”, you should also think, “use sprues!”
I hope you found this article useful.
Method 2 (using the ‘Weld’ function to create sprues) is coming up later, but in the meantime if you have any comments or questions, please feel free to share them in the comments section or via the contact form.
(Still working on the papercutting project where I’m adapting and hand-cutting my way through the designs in the “922 Decorative Vector Ornaments” book.) This week is a really tiny and fiddly design, of a vine and leaves.
(Note: some of the links below are affiliate links. If you’d like to find out more then please check out my policies page.)
Leaves and Vine Papercutting K112
Design number 112 from the book is a simple-looking image, but because it’s so small it was really tricky to cut.
Unlike the previous (owl) design, I didn’t tidy up the piece after I’d cut it, and so it’s got loads of ‘threads’ hanging off it, and has gone a bit thin in one section of the vine. But that is only when you see the piece really close up. When I just look at it without any magnification, it seems fine.
Closer up:
So yeah – I could definitely tidy it up a lot more, but I think I’ll just leave it as it is for now, because I still like the design.
Any comments about the design, or advice about the cutting? You can chip in via the comments page, or Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram.
It’s a PDF file, which should work with most lasercutting systems. However if you need an EPS or SVG file, I’ve also put free versions on Vectorstock.com.
(Please click on the image or the button below to download it.)
If you prefer SVG files or other formats, I’ve uploaded the free sample files to Vectorstock.com for convenient downloads. (Try searching for “free lasercutting files bonus shapes”
Money-saving lasercutting tips #2: How to make “money for nothing” from scrap materials
(This is part of a series of money-saving tips for lasercutting businesses and enthusiasts.) The previous article discussed why you should use your leftover sheets of lasercutting material. This follow-up article delves a bit more deeply into how you can use these scrap pieces more economically, and potentially make ‘money for nothing’ by inserting bonus shapes between the main shapes that you are going to cut. It includes a link to a free lasercutting vector file that contains examples of these bonus shapes.
(If you don’t want to bother reading the article you can just click the button below. It should link straight to the free lasercutting file of sample ‘bonus’ shapes. (If the link is broken, please let me know, so I can fix it again.)
In the current ‘austerity’ economy there is always an interest in make-do-and-mend activities. At the moment even the BBC are running aprogramme calledMoney for Nothing. In this programme, dustbin-diving cheapskates thrifty people find old objects and then take them to artists and craftspeople who then convert the items into something beautiful and/or useful.*
The tips below follow that notion, and demonstrate how you can hopefully turn some of your scrap materials into cash.
Getting more value from your lasercutter
Artists and crafters are rarely well-paid, and so always try to get the most value out of materials as possible. This article shows how to avoid the feelings of frustration and guilt that can come with wasting materials … by using the leftover lasercutting materials to potentially gain some extra money. Win/win!
And as mentioned above, there is a free lasercutting vector file (PDF, SVG, or EPS) available. The file contains examples of extra items that can be inserted in between the main items you are cutting. That way you can use even very small sections of wood or acrylic to make useful products.
The idea is that your time is used more efficiently by cutting out (potentially) useful items straight away, rather than saving small weirdly-shaped bits of wood ‘just in case’.
And because you have used the scrap wood to cut out these (hopefully) useful items, your subconscious won’t give you a constant guilt-trip about wasting materials. So you can get on with doing other, more important lasercutting jobs instead.
Designing your own ‘bonus’ shapes
Below is a link to a free lasercutting vector file. It contains examples of popular shapes that can be used immediately. As mentioned in the previous article, I use this type of ‘bonus’/filler object all the time. When cutting family trees for example, these use large sections of wooden sheet – which then leave funny-shaped scrap pieces…
There’s plenty of space either side of the trunk to cut other objects!
…so rather than waste the leftover wood, I use my ready-made ‘bonus’ shapes to fill in the gaps. Shapes like numbers, letters, and hearts are always popular with other crafters, and so I might cut out a set of hearts and put them on Ebay or Etsy or Folksy. That way, the expensive lasercutting wood sheet material is then used to its full potential.
Have a think about items that you might be able to sell to other crafters, for example. Acrylic letters and numbers to use as card toppers? Little wooden hearts to use as table confetti or jewellery? Different sizes of circles that could be used by toymakers?
Conclusion
By having a file of pre-made popular designs, you can use your leftover wood/acrylic to potentially generate extra income. Instead of keeping weird little bits of wood ‘just in case’, you can make an immediate decision about what to do with the scrap wood, so that you produce far less waste and far more profit.
Challenge: think about small objects that might be useful to other crafters (or even to yourself) in future, and create a file of those shapes. Then the next time you do a cutting job that leaves gaps between the main objects, insert some of the ‘bonus’ shapes into those gaps and cut them out as you go along.
In the meantime, here is a link to a free file which contains examples of some of those bonus shapes:
Free lasercutting file
I hope you found this article useful. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to share them in the comments section or via the contact form.
*Fellow Guild of Makers member Bad Dog Designs has had several pieces featured on the “Money for Nothing” programme. Check out his amazing ‘nixie clocks‘, made from objects such as old radios and record players.
This cute little owl papercutting is part of my ongoing papercutting project that I started a couple of years ago. (Adapting and hand-cutting my way through the designs in “922 Decorative Vector Ornaments” by Dover Books.)
(Note: some of the links below are affiliate links. If you’d like to find out more then please check out my policies page.)
Owl Papercutting K107
Design number 107 in the book was easy to name, for once! It’s an owl. This one took quite a few tweaks to turn it into a papercutting, mainly because the central dots of its eyes were just ‘floating’ and not connected to any other parts of the design. I needed to extend the feathery outer bits of the eyes so that the pupils could ‘hang’ from them.
This ended up as one of the neatest cuts I’ve made so far. In many of the previous cuts I’ve said “what a shame I didn’t tidy up the cut before I photographed it”…
… but I seem to have suddenly realised that there is nothing stopping me doing the tidying! So instead of leaving any ragged bits and bobs I snipped them off before I took the photo. Duh.
Closer up:
There were lots of little curved lines in this cut, but the scalpel did a pretty good job.
Even up close I like it.
While I was cutting it I was still listening to the audiobook version of Brandon Sanderson’s Elantris. I am coming round to the idea of audiobooks as a ‘productivity tool’. Sanderson’s books are normally huuuuuuge big chunky tomes, and take days to read. Being able to listen to a book while doing gardening and household chores has been a real bonus, this week.
Any comments about the design, or advice about the cutting? You can chip in via the comments page, or Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram.
