We have a lot of trouble getting my five year old daughter to go to bed on time, so we added some positive incentive - if Oriana makes it to bed before 8:30pm, she gets a star. Five stars, she gets a new book. Right now, though, I record her star-count on my phone. I feel like she doesn’t really know how many stars she has at any given time, and I felt something a bit more visual would add some incentive.
This is engraved out of 1/4" HomeDepotGrade draft board. The overall design is pretty simple - I drew a bunch of ovals in Inkscape and combined them with “Union” to make the basic shape of the board. I created the stars with the polygon tool, and gave them a little bit of rounding (otherwise the points of the stars would probably get damaged over time). I engraved a 1/4" round circle in each star, and in five places on the board, and drove in some small rare earth magnets:
These magnets had sticky backs, but really they aren’t needed - they’re friction fit, and it took a hammer and a 1/4" dowel to drive them in. Finally, I took some old pants my daughter had worn through the knees on, and lased some cotton backs for each star:
Actually, technically this is my second print. I printed out a founders ruler on 1/8" draftboard as a test print. When Oriana got home from school, I said, “Hey, I got my laser cutter! Do you want to see something I made?” and I showed it to her.
She said, “Did you make this just for me!?”
I said, “Uhh… (blink blink) Yes.”
She said, “Oh, I love it so much! Thank you daddy!”
Oh, and also, because I thought this was interesting; ProofGrade materials come with a slick white sheet of sticky paper over the entire material, so smoke from your engraving can be easily peeled away. HomeDepotGrade, on the other hand, comes with the widest roll of painters tape I could find. I didn’t worry too much about the tape overlapping itself, because I didn’t think it would make a difference, but you can very clearly see where the tape overlapped in the bottom of the engraves:
It doesn’t take much to make a noticeable difference. I’ve found that even adding UV-protectant takes a hair more power versus no treatment on photo paper.
What I love about this (besides the fact that it came out great!) is that you demonstrated all the little details that go into designing a finished product besides just getting the machine to cut out shapes.
Neat project. If you’re going to use a lot of your own materials you may want to consider a medium-tack, paper-backed transfer tape from a place like sign warehouse. You can search the forums for transfer tape and find links and various recommendations. It comes in wide widths like 6" and 12" (and wider) so you don’t get the overlap of painters tape. If you go that route, don’t forget the squeegee to both press it down and force out bubbles and stuff. So far I’ve found it to be virtually the same as the material covering proofgrade.
it is YELLOW. was going to make stars for my daughter’s ceiling. though now she is 11 and the GF is almost here. she will want to make more complex stuff now.
My daughter picked the purple, so I think that has to stay, but I found purple glow in the dark powder on Amazon. If I mix this with some polyurethane, perhaps, I could get the desired effect. Assuming polyurethane doesn’t block UV…
If we’re talking glow in the dark paint and powders, this has always been my go to site, though I t’s possible amazon has similar for less. It is incredibly bright for glow in the dark.
But it doesn’t seem to decrease with age, the blue powders and green paint I bought 10+ years ago are still just as bright. They have a lot more color selection now.
The overall design is pretty simple - I drew a bunch of ovals in Inkscape and combined them with “Union” to make the basic shape of the board. I created the stars with the polygon tool, and gave them a little bit of rounding (otherwise the points of the stars would probably get damaged over time). I engraved a 1/4" round circle in each star, and in five places on the board, and drove in some small rare earth magnets:
