Over the last couple of months various orders have come in requesting stencils. I thought I’d put this to the test and try a few of different materials to see which works best! You may remember back at Christmas time I’d had a bit of fun using my MDF stars to spray on the floor of the workshop. This got me to thinking… Lasercut MDF stars make perfect stencils for spray painting! What other designs could i re-use to make a suitable stencil for material testing? You’ll recognise this fish from my previous post No Vector, No Problem. I’ve adapted him to work as a stencil and I’m ..read more

Its nice to come into work looking a million pounds, so to cheer up everyone in the Nice-Cuts office during this blustery gloomy springtime I decided to have a go at some glitzy laser cut jewellery! Here is my inspiration. I want to make something ridiculously glamorous – but out of humble plywood. Inspiration… Inspiration… So first up, I get on with drawing some of these lovely geometric cut diamond shapes. Here’s what I came up with. Nice simple lines that can be laser etched quickly. Here’s what I came up with… And next arranged into a beautiful necklace! I’ve added l ..read more

This week we were asked if we could laser-engrave onto some beautiful circular wooden slices. We said we’d give it ago! Wooden disk slice. The disks arrived in the post, sent to me by Gemma Richards of Designed By Gemma, a graphic designer and wedding stationer from Cardiff. Gemma specialises in beautiful caligraphy and had also sent me some artwork to test out on the surface of the slices. I had a think about the best way to go ahead with this request. The slices, though beautiful are each slightly unique with an irregular bark pattern. I’m uncertain about which exact type of wo ..read more

Following on from the plywood and acrylic mistletoe of last week, I wanted to make something else Christmassy in a similar style. So next up… Wreaths! I played around with a few different variations when coming up with a design using Adobe illustrator. Variations on initial laser-cut christmas wreath design. Prototype designs for laser cut christmas wreaths I decided early on that I didn’t want to use green acrylic for the the leaves in the same way I had for the mistletoe. This would use far too much acrylic and take a long time to assemble. Instead I would use a nice plywoo ..read more

Every year, coming up to Christmas time, I take part in a ‘make off’ with some of my other laser cutting friends. It’s not really a competition, it’s just for fun, with very little in the way of an actual winner as everybody’s ideas are always so good! Last year I made 3D slot-together bauble kits (read about how I designed them here). This year I’m planning some hanging mistletoe. So first off I draw a mistletoe outline. I took a look at various mistletoe images to get an idea of shape, but I want them to be very simple. Ideally the leaves need to be the same shape and size to make ..read more

It seems as if summer is coming to a close, and as sad as this is, I am feeling relieved that I no longer seem to be a slave to the watering needs of my garden. For weeks thirsty plants have been vying for my attention and my watering can. Determined to find an alternative to this, I have been experimenting with ‘no-water plants’ You guessed it, these plants are in fact laser cut and therefore need no attention whatsoever!! No-water Houseplants! MDF and garden wire Cheese-plant I’ve been trying out a few different designs ideas. My first plan was for an interlocking cactus that w ..read more

One of our regular customers, Oh My Dear Julia, creates beautiful bespoke wedding invitations and favours. She actually wrote a guest blog for us back in March (read it here!) explaining her working process. A couple of months ago she started making larger decorative keepsake hearts using our 4mm Oak Veenered MDF stock. This one is about 30cm tall. On her shop front Julia refer to them as ‘Personalised Wooden Wall Decor’. ‘And They Lived Happily Ever After’ large laser cut keepsake heart by Oh My Dear Julia Then this week she placed an order for a repeat cut. When I asked why she ..read more

Recently we’ve had a few orders coming in for engraved pieces. While this is something I’ve always thought was nice, I tended to think the expense of choosing to Engrave over plain Etch and Cut was not worth the effort and time. However, the results of these latest orders have been so stunning that it’s changed my mind completely and inspired me to do all sorts of new tests! One of our regular customers Oh My Dear Julia – (who wrote a guest blog for us a few months ago, check it out here!) – came to us with this order of wedding favours. Slightly different to her usual cut out style ..read more

Recently I’ve been playing around with a fantastic app I found on IOS called Amaziograph. I was recommended to it by a friend back in December when I was having fun making geometric bauble patterns (read my earlier blogs – Laser Your Way Into The Christmas Display – prototyping and packaging). I found this app fantastic for helping to create interesting vector shapes that were perfect for laser cutting. I created mine using an iPad Pro with the Apple pencil, but it works very nicely with a different kind of stylus or simply using your finger. I’ve tried several Stylus options in the p ..read more

A couple of months ago we had an interesting project pop up in the Nice-Cuts inbox! We didn’t really understand Stephen’s Poetry Wholes, though we certainly had great fun in the Nice-Cuts workshop giving it a go,so we have asked him to explain for us below! Laser Cut set of Poetry Wholes Second Edition made by Nice-Cuts for Stephen Emmerson – Published by if p then q Poet Stephen Emmerson has worked with poetry publisher if p then q to create the incredible Poetry Wholes, second edition. Both this edition and the previous one have been lovingly produced by the Nice-Cuts team. The first ..read more