First time poster here. I bought my glowforge early October with hopes to use it with my clothing design. I still have yet to create anything on fabric as I got distracted by the numerous wood and acrylic options. Here are some items I made (not in the order I made them) :
One of the first projects I tackled was making keychains for the dog rescue my mom volunteers for. I used it as a learning experience for both altering files to get the engrave I like, and learning how different materials look when engraved. I engraved these designs in every material I had on hand yet for some reason I only have pictures of the PG Medium Blue Acrylic
I had the most difficulty with getting the halo and the wings to read with this being such a small scale and the original image having both of them in a gold color. Had to learn a little about adobe to transform the image.
I made a bunch of various keychains for my family and friends and kind of hit a wall because I didnt know how to create my own original files to make things. Then I found the glorious “free files” tab and found this amazing desk organizer. I work at Yardhouse and was always annoyed at the desk organization my managers had in their office. So, I made this, complete with the company logo (which i screenshot from my phone) and some ornate hops (which I got from adobe stock photos:
Next thing I wanted to tackle was some swag for my friends birthday. Him and his roommate call their apartment “T.K.'s Lounge” because it has both of their first initials and they have a “tiki lounge” sign that they ripped the “I’s” off. I decided they needed an official sign as well as some coasters.
Riding the high of “wow, signs are easy and people are impressed by them” high I continued to make one for my dog, my best friends newborn baby, and my cousin who just got married;
And as Christmas came, so did the ornaments. I do not own the rights to most of these images, which stinks because I think I could definitely sell them.
And the last thing I will post is something else I found in the free files section that I added my own images to; phone stands (which surprisingly work great with my IPad as well.)
The story behind T.K.'s Lounge is hilarious - what an awesome gift. I love to see you starting out with so many materials. Can’t wait to see what you make next!
Your comment about buying your GF for one reason and then getting distracted by all the other fun things you can do hit home for me. Got mine for bookbinding and haven’t done a single book.
You’ve got a great array of items. I keep hoping someone will get married or have a baby so I can make a fun gift. Might have to settle for a graduation gift…
If you’re serious about selling your stuff, at least for the simpler stuff, and I mean engravings, have you visited the noun project? You need to pre-pay for each icon if you’re going to engrave it onto something for sale, but it costs three cents an item (per icon) and if you can’t fit that into your profit margin
So I was confused be your pricing comment, so I followed through on the link (I now see that you’re assuming 100 items made)… I did NOT realize that “commercial use” (once again) does not include items for resale. @Xabbess, did you realize this? You can’t use a NounPro account for items for resale. You have to purchase each icon separately in that case. Guess I’ll be cancelling my Pro account.
No…I was not aware of this either. That’s sort of a shocker and I’m wondering how I missed seeing that myself. I should have known it was too good to be true. I’ll be checking it out and making a decision. Thanks @caribis2 and Christy.
On the one hand I have a lot of empathy for creative people trying to earn money off of their talents and on the other I don’t have much time for obfuscation of basic facts by websites. When I went to find that page it was even harder to locate then when I first started using the noun project a couple years ago. For a while I thought they had changed their policies.
I’m glad you appear to be having some great fun with it! You’ve definitely got a great eye for design!
It’s fun getting sidetracked by materials, isn’t it?
I agree with you on all fronts. I am happy to support other artists, but these things really need to be clear up front. I have learned an important lesson of late in looking for “resale” licensing and not just “commercial” licensing.
I’m subscribed for the year. After that, I guess I’ll use the free license with attribution for personal items and then just purchase a handful of resale-friendly licenses if I want to sell things.
And I agree with your agreement. Just went and read all the info. which indeed, was not obvious at the outset. I certainly believe in paying people for their work as well, but I’m not in a situation where buying each icon for $3 is feasible or even desirable at this time. My subscription is up anyway on the 28th of this month, but I went ahead and canceled it. I am really going to miss using it, at least in the way I was,…it was clearly a fantastic resource. I thought I had been careful in reading to find out about using artwork on resale items, but apparently I’ve not been careful enough.
That Palm Tree volcano thingy is really awesome! Also the organizer!
Having trouble finding a marketing niche as well. If you are selling designer clothing I would think accessories would be a natural way to go like polished wood shapes that could snap on, and then be removed for cleaning.
Commercial: Using an icon in a book at each chapter marker. The value of the item is not really affected by the icon.
Resale: The image makes the value in a substantial way – a book about iconography, a T-shirt/coffee mug/keychain/mousepad with the icon as the primary or only design element, etc.
I see a lot of fabric that is laser cut sold for outrageous prices. I wanted to play with the laser with some neoprene to hopefully make some unique swimwear and wetsuits in a price point in comfortable with. I’ve thought about wood pieces on clothing as well but have to get better at illustrator.
Also the organizer!