Things to Make with Scraps

Made on a Glowforge
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#1

As I’m sure we know have found out by now that a lot of cutting leads to a lot of scrap material laying around. And even though I try to compact my design when I cut, there always seem to be space leftover.

So I was trying to think of things to make with those scraps and came up with keychains. I have a craft show coming up and thought I could get a decent amount of these made from all my left overs.

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These are pretty small, but then a keychain shouldn’t be too big anyway.

Also bought these key rings and chain from Aamzon as well for them:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01GZD5N4S

Alignment can be tricky with these but what I did was use my cut lines to check that alignment before running on the real cut settings. Running a cut at power of 1 and speed at 500 will allow you to see a faint line (on masking tape of course).

Anyone else have things they’ve have using their scraps?

38 Likes
Snapmark for double-sided cut and fixing failed cuts
What do you do with your laser scrap?
Speed Cant Go Above 500
#2

I made some name tags for gifts that have a slot at each end to lace the ribbon through.

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#3

Very kewl! :grinning:

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#4

Great use of scraps! I’ve got tons of Swiss cheese plywood here to do something similar. I did make some tiny fiddles and guitars for our local fiddlers group but they will never need them all.

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#5

I can’t leave any surface untouched and I hate to throw material away no matter how small. I fill everything with whatever little doodad is sitting in my files. My house is covered with little lasered scraps so now I take a few with me to gatherings. Inevitably the GF laser comes up in conversation and I give them away. Now that I’ve been cutting for a bit, I am able to let some small scraps go. It’s still painful though.

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#6

Nice… are those acrylics drink stirrers?

Here’s a pile of finished keychains I just completed. My last cut I just added a bunch of things in the spaces where I knew I wouldn’t be able to fit future projects… these little keychains are perfect for that. I also have some bigger ones that I made into magnets.

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#7

Those are awesome and would make great little giveaways. Adding a key chain to make them useful is a good idea. I just went and ordered some. :slight_smile:

Yes, those are cocktail stirrers

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#8

Buttons
This wasn’t the fanciest design since I was in a time crunch and interested in obtaining functioning pants quickly, but it seemed to be an ok use for scrap material and took less than a minute to design and cut. I’ll proably circle back for more complicated buttons later with scrap pieces.

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When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

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#9

That looks great. :grin:

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#10

Buttons! What a fantastic idea. Never would have thought of that. Is that acrylic?

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#11

Yes, it is approx. 1/8" acrylic

#12
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#13

I too tend to waste a ton of good material simply because I didn’t plan ahead. I now have a file with about 20 designs ready to throw on a glowforge job to prevent the waste. Somehow, I always steer back towards star wars stuff. :wink:

Here is a bunch of crap made on some leftover maple.

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#14

If you want this button, I can upload the file. It was adapted from a larger skull someone uploaded early this year.

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#15

Yes please

#16

Here’s the tiny skull button. I wish i could remember who originally uploaded the skull to give them credit for it.

SkullButton copy.pdf (91.4 KB)

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#17

Thanks!

#18
3 Likes
LOVE the detail!
#19

Thanks. It was late and I was crashing.

1 Like