I just finished a Christmas present for my MIL and thought I’d share. Nonna, as she is called, plays the mountain dulcimer and loves this thing. She and her musical group play often at senior centers and local events. I designed the earrings to be exact replicas of her favorite instrument, complete with the tuning knobs. The details I can pull out of this machine amaze me. The earrings are PG medium Hard Maple with a thin coat of poly. I’ll build a box to put them in before they go under the tree. 
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Love how you pulled off the details with multiple engraves…that’s a great design.
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This will undoubtedly be the best present she receives this year. Very well done!
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Cool. I have been working on plans to make a full size playable mountain dulcimer from scratch on the GF. Needed the Pro before I could start because of the length. Making a dulcimer by hand might look a little better than laser cutting one, and using the GF requires design adjustments for certain parts like the peghead, fretboard, and tail block, but I don’t see any show stoppers. The dulcimer sound is very forgiving when it comes to shape and wood type. Only thing stopping me has been moving it up on the priority list.
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OK, I think what we would love to see is her face when she opens the box. (off to look up mountain dulcimers).
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Absolutely fantastic.
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Beautifully done!
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And Carol begins to bang out her ideas… 
How cool is that?
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Having a GF is seemingly going to be like having a dog, an unsuspected part the fun being in the other people also attracted to having one. Seeing what people are making is so cool.
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Yeah, a cute dog that can do circus tricks!
Oh wow! Incredible job of reproducing the original (which, by the way, is a monster huge dulcimer unless that is a miniature bench). She will be thrilled!
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These are beautiful! I love the little details
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Whoa! She is bound to be blow away, just as I am upon seeing this.
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Yes, a child’s bench! Ha ha, I didn’t even think of that! I’m cracking up at the thought of little ole Nonna playing a cello sized dulcimer.
Thank you to everybody for the very nice posts. 
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How lovely! The details are spot-on. I hope she can wear these at more events!
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I would love some detail of your steps on making these. They are fantastic!!!
Thank you! I created the artwork in Illustrator. The frets and details are scored first, then the strings are a separate score. It gave an envgraved look without even trying! I did have to play with the cuts a little as the first tuning keys were too fragile and broke off easily. Just made the attachments thicker and it worked fine. I found an assortment of earring wires on Amazon (so I can make more jewelry eventually).
Thank you! I think these are the prettiest thing I have seen made on the glowforge. Please let us know her reaction. I bet this is one of the best gifts she has ever gotten. LOVE THEM!!!
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