Is there anyone here that has seen the Christmas Ornaments where you can put whatever name you’d like in the center? I am a new user and can not for the life of me decide on which program to make something like the attached in. I have designed what I initially “thought” would work, only to find out how much of a dope I am, lol I’m attaching an image of what I’m looking to make and would appreciate other’s input on easy programs for beginners, and what colors I need to use for what. Sorry for the stupid questions, I just really want to learn how to do this.
I use Inkscape. It’s free but does have a bit of a learning curve however YouTube has a site that is very helpful ( https://www.youtube.com/@LogosByNick ).
What you want to do there is very simple once you get a little comfortable with the program.
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You’re not a dope…and your questions aren’t stupid. I applaud you for asking for help…and even more for wanting to learn. We’ve all been there at some point…gaining skill doesn’t happen overnight. Keep going…and best of luck.
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In addition to the previous answers, there is an online program designed for creating laser cutting files on the fly. It is called Cuttle and it has templates for things like connected text and ornaments similar to the one you shared.
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Another thing to take into account here is the thickness of the lettering. This one for instance will have some very delicate cuts. I would recommend using a thicker bold font for small stuff. You could try it however and depending on the material these thin pieces may be fine.
I did this one up in the format you need. I would cut the blue first then the red. That way the insides cut out before the outside.
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I would also vote INKSCAPE. I have not done ornaments, but I do do shot glasses. I just have the file set up, I replace the Initial on a short glass, or the name on the tall ones, and zap away.
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You will need to use a vector art program like Affinity Designer, Adobe Illustrator, or Inkscape (free).
Personally, I despise Inkscape and happily paid for Affinity Designer… Because it works a lot like Illustrator, which I know. But Inkscape is free and a lot of people here know it well.
The big big thing to remember is that the Glowforge will see a FILLED shape as something to be engraved. A shape that only has the outline (stroke) turned on, and no fill at all, will be CUT.
There are a few other things you have to know to make art like this, like how to merge shapes together. It will seem very complicated at first… But once you learn how to create this thing from scratch you will know enough to do a LOT of cool things.
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I’ll echo Cuttle for ease of use. There are even some templates that get you pretty close already:
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That’s how it defaults but you can change it to cut or score in the GFUI if you forget to unfill it in your design software before uploading.
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Inkscape has my vote to. I knew zero about it like you when I started…everyone here is really helpful.
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I have never seen this issue with Inkshape. Almost everything I do is filled as it is easier to see, but it all shows up originally as cut. I go through each layer and set what happens.
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Has always been the case for me. All vectors show up as cut and all rasters as engraves. At least when first loaded. otherwise as how I left it. I would be annoyed if it were otherwise.
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Weird, for me it is as pictured.
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If you, as a default, both fill and stroke your pieces then it would default to cut as you’ve seen. If you remove the stroke and solely leave the fill it should come in as an engrave.
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