Easy Holiday Gifts - I Made It at TechShop Chandler!

My daughter is a teenager, but not old enough to work. She wanted to get something for her Dad but wanted to spend little money and didn't know what to get him. I have a membership at TechShop in Chandler, AZ and decided making something instead of buying something would be awesome! She was very excited to be able to create the layout, pick out the wood and even what she wanted it to say. We used Autodesk Illustrator to create the format by measuring the piece of wood she chose and entering in the dimensions and then let her choose a design and wording. I then went back in and helped her choose a font and made minor adjustments with the positioning. For the most part, I allowed her to create the project as I wanted it to come from her for her Dad. As the wood piece was pre-cut I did not need to create a cut line, only the area for etching/engraving. 

Next we took the file we saved to the laser cutter and double checked the image. Then "printed" the image on the wood. You can go to www.techshop.ws to view the various tools and equipment that are available for use at the different locations. She was so excited to see the creation she made be put into the wood. The image she chose had a lot of variations which came out amazing! We took it home and decided to leave the natural wood color to allow the variations to show and only used a spray on polyurethane to seal the wood. The project came out amazing and she can't wait to give it to her Dad!