Hello everyone! I’m been trying to figure out for a while if it’s possible to cut and engrave stickers for spices similar to these?
I wanted for the text to be engraved and look black and have a round cut around the sticker. But I’m not sure what material is safe to use and what settings if anyone tried this before?
I would use white polyester sticker paper for that (OL177LP – 8.5" x 11" Sticker Paper - Weatherproof Polyester Laser - OL177LP ). Rather than engraving the text or other graphics, I would print that on a laser or inkjet printer and, just cut them out with the laser.
See also:
Check this out,
Amazing, thank you! I have an inkjet printer and was thinking about printing it and then cutting but I was afraid if there’s a water splash or anything in the kitchen, the ink will turn messy so this is the only reason why I was trying to see if I can engrave instead. I’ll try that vinyl out, appreciate your advice!
I have used spray varnish on labels to protect the ink in cases like that. Might be worth testing to see if that will work for you.
you can even go simpler if you don’t have varnish or something like that. you’re basically looking for a “fixative,” and when i was in art school, we used to use hairspray as a fixative for charcoal drawings. i’ll bet that would keep ink from running, too.
That’s great to know too! Thanks!
Polyester, not vinyl 
steer clear of any vinyl, especially when it contains chlorine.
They make sticker paper for inkjets which is supposed to make the printed image waterproof.
If this is for commercial production I would compare that to a color laser printer sticker.
The bigger challenge will be trying to get it cut out straight.
I have a color laserjet printer that I’ve printed out labels and cut them out on the laser before. You could laser the wording, but the words will be brown and not black. So if you’re okay with that, then you could do the whole thing on the laser. Otherwise, you’ll want to do some trial runs to get them to cut out on the laser in the right position. I did that by taking a piece of draftboard, scoring an 8.5" x 11" to use as a placement jig and pinned the jig down to the crumb tray. If you have a premium machine, you’ll want to spray the board with something like Krylon EasyTack before pinning the board down. Then all you have to do is place your paper/labels on the board and peel them off instead of having to move the board. If you have an Aura or a Spark, you won’t have to spray the board to hold the paper/label, as those machines won’t blow the paper/labels around like one of the premium machines does. I print multiple sheets on just copy paper and do practice cuts to get the placement correct before I put in the label paper.
As I didn’t use mine for kitchen stuff, I did do some labels for my larger kitchen pantry jars, but I just printed them out on copy paper and adhered them with wide packing tape. Mainly because I seem to switch what I put in them and would rather waste copy paper than labels. If you use something like Avery paper labels (I just buy the full sheet so I can space my projects as I want), you would want to spray something to protect them as others have mentioned.
I reverse engrave mine on picture-frame 1/32" acrylic. Paint desired main color, reverse engrave the text, paint the text color, then cut the shape…
(The lids on these jars freely rotate when they are opened, hence why many are not straight… I don’t obsess over getting them square every time I use one…)
Hey, I’m late to this party, but welcome to the forum! I hope you have fun making the labels. Post a photo of how they worked out if you have the time.
