How I Make Pins with the Glowforge Aura
Last month I hosted a fun cafe-inspired party at my apartment for my birthday, it was such a blast! If you missed the post, I shared all the details here. I was inspired by the trend of at-home cafes that I’ve been seeing everywhere on TikTok and Instagram these days. But I wanted to add a few extra touches to my version to really make it my own.
And one way that I knew I could really get creative was in a fun take-away favor. I was brainstorming what kind of merch is available at most coffee shops and was thinking of maybe just printing some cute stickers for people to take. But then I thought of all the cool enamel pins that lots of shops sell, and knew that my friends would love wearing something like that.
This was also a great opportunity to break out my Glowforge Aura (*GIFTED) laser cutting machine! I love the chance to use this cool craft laser cutting & engraving machine on DIY projects, and knew it would be perfect for making pins.
I wanted to create a unique design that would remind my friends of my party but also be general enough that they could style anytime on their backpacks or jackets after the event. Also — if you are reading this in the future, this was during the PEAK popularity era of Sabrina Carpenter’s song “Espresso”, so I just HAD to make a “that’s that me espresso” pin for my coffee-themed party.
So I got to work creating my designs on Canva and had them cut out of acrylic or wood with the Glowforge Aura. Follow along below to see all the details on how I created this fun favor!
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*The Glowforge Aura was kindly gifted to me by Glowforge. All opinions are my own.
HOW I MAKE PINS WITH THE GLOWFORGE AURA
Supplies:
Glowforge Aura (*GIFTED)
Glowforge Craft Laser Filter (*GIFTED)
Medium Purple Proofgrade Acrylic (*GIFTED)
Proofgrade Basswood Plywood (*GIFTED)
Canva or any kind of design software
Paint markers (optional)
STEP 1: First, I created my pin designs on Canva. I love Canva for their huge selection of graphics and cute fonts. You can really customize your design so easily without needing to have any complicated design software experience. I created one pin design with my cafe logo, one that was inspired by Sabrina Carpenter’s song Espresso, and one that was a simple coffee mug.
My recommendation for designing the pins is to look for fairly simple graphics without too many little details. And look for graphics on Canva where you can change the color of different elements in the design.
To prepare the designs for the Glowforge app, I updated the graphic colors. The red lines were everything that I wanted cut from the material and the blue lines were everything that I wanted etched from the material. Then I saved each individual graphic as their own PDF file. This is important because JPG or PNG files will not allow you to cut anything out (these are raster or bitmap images). So be sure you are saving the individual images as PDF files (or any type of vector file).
STEP 2: Next, I set my material into the Glowforge Aura machine. For the Cafe logo pins and some of the coffee mug pins, I used the Proofgrade Basswood Plywood. For the other mugs and some of the That’s That Me Espresso pins, I used the Proofgrade Medium Purple Acrylic. And for the other That’s That Me Espresso pins, I used the Grape Crush Pastel Acrylic.
**NOTE: I will say, the Grape Crush Pastel Acrylic pins did not turn out as clean as the Proofgrade materials. I think this color was maybe a little too light for the Glowforge Aura machine to accurately see. But they turned out cute enough that I still wanted to use them. Just a head’s up!
STEP 3: I imported the Canva images into the Glowforge app. Once I uploaded the PDF files, I did have to resize them a bit in the app until they were about 1” x 1” in size. And I moved the designs around so they were arranged on the camera image of my material in the Glowforge Aura machine.
Then, I set the machine settings based on the material that I was using. For this step, I did have to do a lot of trial and error. It seems like every type of material (even different colors of the same material) and every specific design (depending on the size and amount of details) require their own settings to get a good, clean cut and a deep engrave. So you may have to do a lot of tests. You are going to be adjusting the combination of the laser’s speed, power, lines per inch, and # of passes.
Here are the settings that I ended up using on my pins, for reference:
Purple Mug
Engrave: 80 / 9.5 / 405 1x
Cut: 7 / 10 / 3x
Purple Me Espresso
Engrave: 100 / 10 / 405 1x
Cut: 7 / 10 / 3x
Plywood Mug & Cafe Ott Logo
Engrave: 90 / 9.5 / 405 1x
Cut: 16 / 10 / 2x
Pastel Lilac Me Espresso
Engrave: 100 / 9 / 810 1x
Cut: 5 / 10 / 3x
Then I clicked “print” on the glowforge app and watched as the machine (magically!) etched and cut out my designs.
STEP 4: Then I removed the cut out pin designs from the machine. You will notice, there is a piece of protective tape on either side of your material.
For some of the details on my acrylic pins, I used a paint marker to fill in the spaces for some extra color. To do this, I left the protective paper on the acrylic and painted with a paint marker over all the etched spaces. Then I allowed this to fully dry before pulling off the protective paper.
I will say, this was kind of unsuccessful on small details. Like I tried it on the grid lines of the coffee mug and it did not work well. It got under the paper and just did not give the clean look that I wanted. So I ended up keeping some details just etched and not painted in. But I did think it added a nice touch to the “that’s that me espresso” text and to fill the mug with “coffee”.
STEP 5: Next, I went in and carefully pulled off the protective paper on both sides of the pins. I used a weeding tool to help weed off the tiny pieces like between the letters and illustrations.
STEP 6: And then I attached the pin backs to the center of the back of the pins using a small drop of E6000 glue. This glue is super strong but it takes a long time to cure, so I left them drying for about 24 hours before adding the rubber backing to each pin.
And they were ready for the party! These pins turned out to be such a hit at my birthday! And I love that all my friends have a little memento to remember the party by! :)
I displayed them in a dish at the “counter” that we set up to serve coffee from, and let my friends pick out whichever ones they wanted. And I, of course, kept a few for myself to remember this epic party!
Are you into giving out a party favor when entertaining? What is one of the best party favors you’ve ever received?
xo Rachael
