As someone who is always looking for a creative outlet, I am always on the hunt for inspiration. Social media allows me to consider different mediums and test them on my lasers. When I came across this idea it was long before the 2020 flakes took social media by storm, the vinyl groups were personalizing projects with snowflakes, however I decided to apply the concept to names. These are time consuming to make because each one is totally unique to the name. I design these in Corel, utilizing various functions of the program. Depending on the customization from the customer, these can take several minutes to design. Various areas of the name are cut to really make the engraved part stand out. Sometimes it takes a minute for someone to realize it is a name and not some kind of totem pole design. I have been cutting these out for my customers since Christmas 2018. I mostly use my LS 1630 100w for small projects, it is about 5 years old and had been one of my favorite tools in my shop. My engrave settings are 300 speed & 15/20% power. The file itself takes a little over 11 minutes to engrave and cut for an individual ornament. I like to use as much of my blank space as possible so I try to fit in non-personalized items as well that would have otherwise been trash. On this project I put in some Tooth Fairy coins to fill open areas. I sometimes will also use blank shapes for other projects. I do offer painted ornaments and it is really a toss up as to which one is my favorite. Another fun aspect of the project is sometimes there are some really awesome designs the names create as they form the snowflake.
