One of my co-workers was getting married last year and she wanted to have some wood invites made from some of the trees on her farm. She designed these beautiful invites and her husband prepared all the wood blanks. I had the easy job of engraving them all.
I think the hardest part was keeping them from wrapping since they weren’t completely dry yet.
i had a few of the curl up while engraving.
I really love when something i work on gets submitted for awards because i get some really nice photos out of it
She also had a leather guest book that she wanted to engrave. This one way a bit trickier since getting it to sit flat was a challenge. In the end i think i missed by about .25".
Which was just enough to just hit part of the binding which required a little super glue the hold it together.
Here are a few bonus pictures i found while digging through the photos from the shoot. Both of these tiles where engraved for this photo shoot. They wanted something that was subtle but would highlight the client logo.
Every piece of leather is slightly different, so your best bet is to always run a cut test or an engrave test on the piece you want to use. You can definitely start with PG settings if you are in a hurry. In general people will post settings in the Beyond the Manual section (that’s the only one we can talk about non-PG settings without freaking out the lawyers) so something like this you may find helpful: https://community.glowforge.com/search?expanded=true&q=%23beyond-the-manual%20leather%20settings
Hello there, I wanted to tell you a few things.
1- I just purchased a Glowforge Pro and you were a motivation because of this post.
2- I am getting married in about 2 months and this is definitely something we would really love to use in our wedding.
If you have the time to help us in any way we would really appreciate it. I have no experience on this and obviously I have to wait for my Pro to get here first but we are anxious about this whole thing.
Thanks a lot and honestly Glowforge should give something because your post really push me to make the purchase.
Thanks again
Just a suggestion…two months is pretty short lead time to prepare a large number of invitations, so if you want to get them done in time, be sure to buy your materials and have them on hand when the machine arrives. (The leather for the book, the 1/8" cherry for the invites if you plan to do them.)
Prepare the file with the text you want to have and be ready to go once the machine arrives.
I believe there is a short window where you can retroactively add their referral link - you’d have to contact support to verify - but it might be worth trying!
You’ll need to create your files with the text that you want to engrave. (Most people just use the free Inkscape vector program, but if you have Illustrator you can use that as well.)
Links to the tutorials for getting started are here…you can read them now to get familiar with the processes.
I’m glad that i could help inspire you to pick up a GF for yourself. I think you will find endless uses for it. I would be happy to help you out with any questions you might have. Just message me whenever you need help.
I will say the leather guest books can be a little tricky based on their irregular shape. If possible i would suggest picking up a spare just in case you run into any issues. also practicing on scrap material that is roughly the same size will help you nail the alignment.
As far as designs go i would highly recommend finding a local designer to help lay something out if you are not familiar with design programs. I am lucky enough to work with some really talented designers and it really shows in the end product.
Be prepared to invest time learning how to use the machine, and how to work with different materials to produce results you are happy with.
Also, if you don’t have the experience with design applications, learning how to use them, or tracking down and paying someone to help you with that until you do.
Do not expect to plug it in and start churning out quality items like shown above. That takes time and experience.
Not trying to be negative here, but it takes time to learn these things, and you can’t expect to get similar results as others without practice.
