It is the beginning of September and Christmas creep is in full swing. Craft stores already seem to have supplies out for all of the major 4th quarter holidays – I guess crafters like to plan ahead and be prepared?

Not me – I had just completed my laser cutter safety course at Nova Labs, and this was actually my first project just 2 weeks prior to Christmas, 2013.

Here are the details:

• Material is 1/2″ thick oak, which was very slow to cut and had a lot of charring.
  • We actually liked the contrast of the blackened edge to the lighter wood and didn’t bother sanding these at all.
• Art was created in Illustrator, from a mix of sources:
  • Reindeer was a simplified tracing of a small figurine we purchased in Copenhagen in 2009.
  • Snowman was more-or-less made from scratch.
  • The snowflake took inspiration from other vector snowflakes online.
  • Tree was straight from a Shutterstock vector library of Christmas trees
  • The ornament was a slightly modified Shutterstock file.
• The base was designed with a notch to match the thickness of the wood hook.
  • Despite not really accounting for the laser kerf, it pressure fits in and doesn’t need glue or other fasteners to stay put.

Overall my first project went very well, with no problems that I can remember. We loved that these matched our style much better than anything we found online. I guess that’s the entire point of making.

Check out a PDF of the more original artwork.Christmas_Stocking_Hangers_2013-12-09