Share Your Ornaments

[Keith Outten]

With so many engravers here at the Creek we should be able to put together a large group of ornament drawings for the upcoming Christmas season. I will start with a couple that I have used. The Zip file contains a Corel 12 cdr file with the necessary vector lines to cut out Santa pulling the Christmas Tag. All you have to do is insert the appropriate text and engrave.

[Shaddy Dedmore]

How did you make the outline? Cute ornament.

This one can be used as is, or you can take out the triangles and the circle in the center, then put text in the center, like "Christmas 2005" or a name.

Shaddy

EDIT: PS, I got the Holiday one too, if you didn't alter them already... verify the line width on everything because all the shapes are set to vector, not just the outline. So they kinda just fall apart.

[Keith Outten]

These are the ornaments we made for 2004. They were made from 1/8" thick acrylic mirror. When you look at the drawing I think you can figure out how to make your own custom names.

[Keith Outten]

How did you make the outline? Cute ornament.



Shaddy,

Aaron worked the Santas Tag ornament a couple of years ago. The vector outline was done using the contor tool in Corel Draw. We made these from 1/8" wood and included the name of each person and the year on each ornament. These were a big hit with everyone.

[Ed Lang]

This is just too cool.

For a first time laser owner as of yesterday, having working files to try out my machine is great!

I hope to upload a few tomorrow of my own design.

Merry Christmas

[Doug McIntyre]

Great for us to be able to share ornaments but I'm sure many like myself use an older version of Corel and have no need to upgrade for any other reason than to be able to read files from others.

Any chance of members trying to post them in older versions?

[George M. Perzel]

Hi All;
Here's a few more- enjoy and Happy holidays to all
george

[Lee DeRaud]

If you're looking for an easy way to class-up your presents, engrave gift tags on photo matte board.
(100% power, 70% speed, 250PPI on a 25-watt ULS machine, for what it's worth)

[Keith Outten]

Lee,

Great idea, matte board is inexpensive and would make nice tags.
--------------------------------------------------------------

Come on folks, share your designs. We should have a couple dozen new ornaments by now :)

[Joe Pelonio]

Here's one that can be totally vector cut from wood then painted,
or with different colors of acrylic or mirror acrylic. You could also delete some or all of the cutout pieces from the large center piece and add your own rastor image. You will have to use a very small drill on the top and bottom to add fishing line with knots to keep the pieces apart and then they can be spun. I've saved it in Corel 5 format.
http://members.aol.com/bisjoe/snowflor.gif

[Lee DeRaud]

You will have to use a very small drill on the top and bottom to add fishing line with knots to keep the pieces apart and then they can be spun.I think I'm gonna hit the fishing department at the sporting goods store later today...seems like I've seen the perfect hardware for that particular job: some thin wire leader and a couple of brass swivels oughta get 'er done.:cool:

[Robert Alexander]

Here are a few ornaments that I have done. I like cutting them out of 1/8"
clear plastic. Or mirror acyrlic.

[Rebecca Leedy]

Here are some that I worked up for a Builder's trade show recently. Not all are builder themed. I did them in both alder and acrylic. Both types of materials vectored great. Good luck and hope anyone can use them!!
***(file to be attached. I accidently uploaded the wrong file)****:eek:

[mike klein]

Does anyone know why is it when I click on the attachments here, all I get is a page with garbled characters...It happens quite often..

Mike

[Chris Cordina]

The file extension is cdr. That means you right clich on it and save to a folder then open corel draw and import. I goofed too then relized my mistake.http://www.sawmillcreek.org/images/icons/icon7.gif

[mike klein]

Chris...I have left clicked on these before and it always brought up another window asking me to save the file and some other stuf which I don't recall at this time..I just tried right clicking on one of the .cdr files in this thread and yes it does ask me to save it, but as a HTML extension, not .cdr

Mike

[Lee DeRaud]

Chris...I have left clicked on these before and it always brought up another window asking me to save the file and some other stuf which I don't recall at this time..I just tried right clicking on one of the .cdr files in this thread and yes it does ask me to save it, but as a HTML extension, not .cdrJust change the extension to '.cdr', it'll work fine.

[mike klein]

OK...I give it a try. One thing I just noticed is that a left click on the .zip files brings up a save-open window but not on the .cdr files..Live and Learn.

[Jerry Allen]

As mentioned, you can just change the extension to .cdr after IE gives you the .html extension. IE does not handle .cdr and I can't figure out where to add it. It used to be easy. .ZIP files are handled correctly so when you post something it will save some people agony if you zip your file regardless of it's true extension.
I now use a download assistant, not for this reason, but it solves the problem. Leechget is free and handles the saved extension as it should be.
http://www.leechget.net/en/

[Bruce Larson]

Here is one which is a lot of work but makes a beautiful piece. Try it in clear 1/8 acrylic first then try using different colored transparent colors.
You may have to monkey a little with the slot size to fit the kerf your laser cuts out. Glue it with acrylic cement.

[Dave Fifield]

Nice snowflake ornament Bruce! It took 42 minutes in the laser (35W Legend 24TT @ S10/P100/F4500) and another 20 minutes to push all the bits out and assemble/glue it up. I added a string hole to one of the arms. There are two slots that don't appear to be used - anyone else find that, or did I assemble it wrong? I may modify the shapes to remove the extra slots. I'll post the file if it works out.

It's a difficult subject to photograph - here's my best picture of it:

http://www.daveswoodenwonders.com/19pointsnowflake_s.jpg

Full sized photo is here: http://www.daveswoodenwonders.com/19pointsnowflake.jpg

My wife just came in and saw it. She loves it! She wants to give it away at her hospice volunteer meeting tomorrow at the gift exchange and wants me to make more for her friends and some for our house too. I'm going to try them in different colors per Bruce's suggestion. I'm also going to try some of the other designs above.

Thanks all - I think my laser engraver just paid for itself!! :)

Cheers,
Dave F.

[Dave Fifield]

Here's my slightly modified version of Bruce's 19 point snowflake design. I have rearranged the pieces to fit on an 11.5" square (I seem to have quite a few scrap pieces this size) - you can arrange them to suit your needs. I have also lengthened one of the small pieces and added a string hole and removed the two surplus slots from one of the main body pieces.

I haven't tried this on the laser yet, so be warned, it may not work (it looks like it will though!). I'm going to run a few of these tomorrow evening. :)

http://www.daveswoodenwonders.com/19pt_snowflake_modified_df.cdr

Cheers,
Dave F.

Edit: P.S. I only count 18 points on this design....

[Ed Lang]

I am new to the laser world. I bought mine for wood. Now after seeing the snowflake, I am floored!

Can I get the 1/8" material from Lowes? I want to try and cut one for my wife by Friday if at all possible and I have no material other than plexiglass scraps from unknown origin.

I need some tips on the new material to me.

[Ed Lang]

I am cutting the 19 point snow flake as I type this. I am still in awe with the laser.

I am using a Universal Laser M-300 50W unit. I am using acrylic I salvaged from work 1/8". My settings are 45% power, 2.8 speed and 1000 PPI.

I ran some test squares in the lower corner of my material to dial in the settings. I decided to not get the air assist when buying this machine because I didn't plan to cut any acrylic... maybe I need to add this option after seeing this thing! In cutting on the vector table, I get no flame or smoke above the surface as everything is pulled down thru the material. Boy outside sure does stink:eek: glad I live in a rural area.

I will try to put this thing together and post my picture later.

Thanks guys!

[Ed Lang]

I got it cut and put together!

http://kc4ylx.smugmug.com/photos/48229037-M-0.jpg

[Dave Fifield]

Nice job Ed! I made three more tonight. My modified file seems to work just fine. I made another clear acrylic one and then two with transparent red acrylic. The red ones don't look so nice IMO - they don't have the sparkle and "snowflakiness" of the clear acrylic. I've got some green too, I'll make a couple of those tomorrow evening maybe.

http://www.daveswoodenwonders.com/redsnowflake_s.jpg

Full size image is here:

http://www.daveswoodenwonders.com/redsnowflake.jpg

This is fun! I'm going to have a go at designing some of my own ornaments next.

Cheers,
Dave F.

[Keith Outten]

Ed,

Nice job on the snowflake. Make sure you start a list of customer names and send them ornaments each year, kind of like a Christmas card in a sense but they won't throw away your ornaments. During casual conversations make note of their wives and childrens names as well. The ornaments are a nice way to thank your customers for their business and a reminder each year of your services. I make sure to engrave the year on each ornament and the name of each recipient and change the design and material type every year. I never engrave any advertisements on my ornaments, I don't need to, they always remember where the ornament came from.

Jackie and I use our ornaments as name tags for all of the gifts we give to our famlly.

[Chris Cordina]

Those are nice looking, have you tried to mix the different colors?

[Dave Fifield]

Did a green one last night. It looks nice next to the red ones. Will try a mixed one tonight. The clear ones still look best IMO.

Per Glen's thread , here's the Corel Draw version 9 file for the 18 point snowflake:

http://www.daveswoodenwonders.com/18ptSnowflake_cdrver9.cdr

Enjoy,
Dave F.

[Bruce Larson]

I have done these in transparent blue and clear. they are my second favorite combination. We have also done them in red, white and blue opaque as a patriotic theme. Glad you all like them.

[Mike Shauer]

Thank you all for posting the files! I have had my laser for just over a month now and still having a time with Corel, so it was nice to finally see it run and produce something.

[mike klein]

Keith,

Do you happen to know what font that is which was used for your icicles

Thanks
Mike

[Bill Cunningham]

I think it was BASSOON 'bold' (corel standard) I put a single contour to the inside of mine, broke it apart, then filled the inside contour with 60% gray to give it a central frosted look..

[David James]

You might have to play with the scale a bit, the smaller ones do pretty good, the large one need to be a bit smaller to fit together better. A touch of glue wouldn’t hurt.

[Keith Outten]

Keith,

Do you happen to know what font that is which was used for your icicles

Thanks
Mike

Mike,

Sorry, for the life of me I can't remember and in the original file I think they were converted to curves.

.

[mike klein]

Keith,

It was a Comic Sans MS. Searched thru many of my fonts to find it but
glad I did as I found some others I didn't know I had that worked out
very well also, so it was time well spent.

Thanks
Mike

[Ed Newbold]

This is fun! I'm going to have a go at designing some of my own ornaments next. Cheers, Dave F.
Anyone know the best source for clear and colored 12x24 sheets of acrylic these days?

Thanks,

[Lisa Walter]

This is beautiful!!....... but I am wondering......what would you charge for 42 minutes in the laser??? And it's hard for me to tell how big the ornament actually is from the picture. Is it about 8 inches by 8 inches?

Lisa




Nice snowflake ornament Bruce! It took 42 minutes in the laser (35W Legend 24TT @ S10/P100/F4500) and another 20 minutes to push all the bits out and assemble/glue it up. I added a string hole to one of the arms. There are two slots that don't appear to be used - anyone else find that, or did I assemble it wrong? I may modify the shapes to remove the extra slots. I'll post the file if it works out.

It's a difficult subject to photograph - here's my best picture of it:

http://www.daveswoodenwonders.com/19pointsnowflake_s.jpg

Full sized photo is here: http://www.daveswoodenwonders.com/19pointsnowflake.jpg

My wife just came in and saw it. She loves it! She wants to give it away at her hospice volunteer meeting tomorrow at the gift exchange and wants me to make more for her friends and some for our house too. I'm going to try them in different colors per Bruce's suggestion. I'm also going to try some of the other designs above.

Thanks all - I think my laser engraver just paid for itself!! :)

Cheers,
Dave F.

[Robert Alexander]

I did not want to start another link. So I figured I would put this in the
Share your Ornaments section. And let everyone at the creek try it. I do a
couple of card each year out of card stock that I get at the local craft store. This year I did some pop up cards. And whe using the laser alignment issues with different paper parts do not matter. Everything fits great.

[George Elston]

Not exactly an ornament but----. We are in the process of moving and I am using the laptop on a "borrowed" wireless connection, so if I don't check back in soon, I will return, and Merry Christmas to all. All rights given, cut as many as you like. It's a combo of Corel art and the Santa from Epilog, with my own added touches.

[Dean Rose]

Hi everyone, Here is another 3d snowflake ornament. I recently made 2 of the ones that Bruce & Dave posted and they came out great. I designed a new one this morning that only takes 11 minutes to machine using straight lines instead of curves.Give it a try.
Have fun, Dean Rose

[Barbara Buhse]

Once again, I'm reposting my best -seller. I have so many Christmas and winter themed ornaments, then last year I designed this one for Hannukah and it became the most popular one I sell. We have so many families in my area that celebrate both holidays, it just made a bunch of sense.

You can delete the cutout triangles in the star points to make it a more solid, less fragile ornament, but if you do, don't forget to add a hole! :rolleyes:

[Joni Campbell]

Beautiful designs, can you share with me what type of glue to use with plexy glass?
Thank you all

[Dean Rose]

Joni, I use weld on # 16 from IPS Corp. Piedmont Plastics sells it and other retailers.

[Joni Campbell]

Thank you Dean. I wonder if the hardware stores would carry this? I did find one on ebay. anyways thank you again for your help.

[Linda Butterfield]

Hi Keith . I found your post from a couple years back on the icle ornaments. I used to make these with my scrollsaw but I'd like to try it on my laser. I am learning Corel Draw X3 and I've played around and can't seem to figure it out. Could you post some instructions or email me them directly? I would appreciate it. LinsterBee@msn.com

[lee maisel]

Here are a few ornaments that I have done. I like cutting them out of 1/8"
clear plastic. Or mirror acyrlic.

Thanks for the ornaments Robert, but I don't know what happened, there were a ton of duplicate lines in it that I didn't know about when I sent the job, (I should have checked) and it would recut over and over in small sections, then the laser went insane, and cut a line diagonally across the piece, then all the way to the far left corner of the engraver, cutting a line into the built in rulers! I cannot find a hidden line in the file that would have done that, so who knows! Anyhow, they are pretty snowflakes!

[Lisa Walter]

Thanks for the ornaments Robert, but I don't know what happened, there were a ton of duplicate lines in it that I didn't know about when I sent the job, (I should have checked) and it would recut over and over in small sections, then the laser went insane, and cut a line diagonally across the piece, then all the way to the far left corner of the engraver, cutting a line into the built in rulers! I cannot find a hidden line in the file that would have done that, so who knows! Anyhow, they are pretty snowflakes!

Was there eggnog involved in this job? Did you look outside to see if grandma got run over by a reindeer? hee hee

Lisa

[Jerry Hay]

I was just at a Value city department store today and they were having a store closing sale and they had 50 light strings for $6.00. It is in Wheeling WV if anyone is close and wants to puck some up.

[Jerry Hay]

here are some for you all.

[Jay Beller]

and don't forget photo ornaments. I make dozens of these for friends to remember events of the past year.

[Bill Cunningham]

Yup!! the photo ones sell like hotcakes..
these are a few with my grand daughters on them.. I use family members for website samples.. saves a lot of problems..

[Mike Christen]

Wow Bill

Those are awesome, great job. care to share the pattern

Mike

[Albert Nix]

Bill those are super nice. I have been tring to get the sharpness and detail that you seem to have mastered. Do mind walking us through the steps from original image to end result. I have corel draw x4 and photograve. I have been mostly been tring with photograve, my MII drivers or a combination. I guess my biggest problem is that I do not know what image characteristics I need to grt the desired output.
Thanks
Al

[Jay Beller]

Not sure what Bill will offer, but one thing I've found that really helps is removing the background from the subject. It keeps the engraving simple to recognize.

To remove the background, I still use Knockout2, even though Corel sorta incorporated it into X3. I also find 20-30% lower power than normal for acrylic helps keep image details.

[Bill Cunningham]

Hi Folks... Yup , removing the background is essential to getting a good photo.. These were created from the original camera .jpgs.. It's important that if you want a nice clean picture, and your original is a .jpg, it should NEVER be a .jpg again after you've worked on it.. Every time you save one as a .jpg it gets crappier and crappier depending on the compression.. Once I have converted to grayscale, I use photopaint to brighten it up a bit, shape it to a 2x3" oval, then down sample it to 150 dpi and save it as a .bmp for the old photograv. I use the Photograv 'Glass' setting, not acrylic, the glass setting seems a bit better. And when I etch it I use about 35-40 spd/80%power/300dpi and cut using 8-10 speed/100%power... I used a standard snowflake shape, I think it came from this thread someplace, and stretched it to put a oval 2x3" into the center. I then import the bitmap, and center it in the oval, centered in the snowflake, then send it to the laser.. Using 3/16 cast acrylic.. Sorry I don't have the file on this computer, and I won't be back in the shop until after Christmas, but they are pretty simple to make.. The only fly in the ointment is, you will rarely get good digital photos from your customers. Those ones above are extra sharp, because they came from good digital pictures, the kind customers rarley send you..:D
Oh. and don't forget that acrylic like glass must be etched as a negative, so once you have eliminated your background, fill it with black before running it through photograv and ending up with your negative binary image and the background will now be white..

[Albert Nix]

Thanks for the tips Bill,I need all the help I can get on photos lol.
Merry Christmas All
Al

[Stephen Beckham]

I tried to clean them up, but some of them are a couple years back and have some flaws from where I was learning. Mostly from Scroll Saw books - then added in some raster along with vector for effect.

If one of these is a repeat - sorry...

I saved them all in V.10

Steve

[Stephen Beckham]

Just found this one and cleaned it up and saved it as V.10 as well...

It brings back memories pulling these old files up and looking at how much I've learned in the three years. They could all still use some personalizing, but I figure these are close enough to get someone ideas...

Take care and Merry Christmas to all!


Hope you all have a prosperous year next year (and had one this year as far as that goes)... The only good thing about paying a lot of taxes is that it means your took in a lot of work... Maybe not a lot of profit, but a lot of work... I thank the big Guy everyday for the help he's given this store..... I just hope that I'm being a good enough steward to keep it prosperous...

I also hope that doesn't cross the line for making this post a 'religious post' in nature.... Shameful to worry about that in a thread about "CHRISTmas" ornaments... Oooo - pushing the grey line into the 63rd shade on that comment too - I'll leave it at that....