For many years, my wife has hosted a table at our church’s Ladies Luncheon in late April or early May. This year is the 20th edition, and my wife decided to host two tables, and thought it would be a great time to put the Glowforge to the test.
I thought it would be a great way to 1) justify the purchase, and 2) get a good bit of free marketing – either for referring others to buy a ‘Forge, or to drum up a little business for my hobby / side business.
The brunch is tomorrow, April 28th, and setup for the tables was today. Let’s just say that the tables have already been labeled a HUGE success – by my wife, and several of the other ladies who have been setting up for the Brunch.
Several people have asked if I would like to make various things to sell their retail shops, and one of the other ladies sent my wife a message complimenting her on what was done, and said that her son has been going on and on about wanting this 3D Laser Printer called a Glowforge, and asking if by any chance that was what we used to make the placemats, decorations, etc.
Before she even told me, she volunteered me to do a demo at our home! (I think I see my first referral coming…… 
)
ANYWAY…. The theme of the brunch is “(Yours is) A Story Worth Telling” and the invitation had an old Royal manual typewriter on it, and various library book items. My wife’s vision (which I got to execute) was to make placemats for one of the tables to be the typewriter (which I engraved on PG draftboard – at one per sheet)
and the other to make Magnolia placemats as she grew up in the South, and magnolias (and flowers in general) are a key part of HER story.
Well, after looking at many different Magnolia pictures, we managed to narrow it down to one she really liked, and we ran with it. Engraved on White Proofgrade Acrylic, they turned out great – with an engrave time about 89 minutes each for the magnolias and 88 for the typewriters.
Note that there are eight places at each table…. So 16 placemats,
She also wanted boxes with Bible verses and / or “story” sayings, so I was able to take some of the box designs others had shared, did a bit of tweaking , editing, and stretching, then easily added Bible verses and other sayings to them. (And for putting them together, I love the rubber mallet I have…
Yes, for those of you who are doing the math, (and because draftboard engraves MESSY), it forced me to do my first cleaning cycle. (It DOES make a difference)
The Typewriters just required weeding – but after the first one, I quickly determined that for large engraves, it’s much easier to peel the masking first. The magnolias were finished by using a mix of acrylic paints to get a general grey color for the lines, and a little gold for the center of the flower.
She also picked out pictures of her parents, grandparents, and my grandparents and we printed them on sheets of vellum (actual printing, not glowforging) to make pillar lights surrounded by silk magnolias for one of the tables.
Separately, we have two sets of “book decorations” that are the old Readers Digest condensed books that had been artfully cut into the words “LOVE” and “FAMILY” and sold at a local department store 5-10 years ago. Over the past few years, we’ve had an issue with some of them staying standing, since the books tend to open up and spread out.
That would be a problem, but I have one of those 3D laser printer things…… Geordi (la Forge) to the rescue…. A little bit of measuring with the calipers, a bit of Inkscape work, and I was able to easily cut out draftboard “frames” that fit nicely around the base of each letter, kind of like a little “skirt” that holds each book closed and keeps them standing nicely. My wife took those to be used on other tables that did not have someone decorating them.
Here are a few more pics of the tables.
