Wood Alphabet Puzzle DIY with New Glowforge Aura: Laser Cutting Tutorial Step-by-Step for Crafters

welcome back happy Crafters we are playing with the glowforge aura this week and we are going to make a perfect sellable project this is something that doesn't require a lot of cost to make doesn't require a ton of time and it would be a great product for you to sell on Etsy and make a little income from your glowforge aura if you aren't already subscribed to my channel go ahead and hit the Subscribe button and make sure you follow for updates so you can see all the videos I'm going to be posting over the next few weeks because we are going to continue talking about how we can make money with our glowforge Aura how we can maximize it and really just have a lot of fun with this new machine from glowforge that is meant for Crafters things I'm loving about the glow Forge so far are the tabletop space it takes up I like that it's not massive I also like that it has an attached air filter so that I don't have to vent to the outside I'm loving having that convenient little air filter attached to it so it fits in My Craft Space and I don't have to like cut a hole in my wall or vent out the window I love that it only has one button so it's simple and I love that it has an interior camera so that it can see the material I'm cutting with at any given time and be super super accurate in that way and I can see it on my computer in real time so I know nothing is going wrong inside the machine um I'm also loving the pastor slot I haven't had a ton of time to play with it yet but we definitely will in coming videos the aura does have a pass-through slot just like traditional glowforge models where you can open up the sides and cut extended material lengths as they pass through the machine so we'll definitely play with that in future videos but today we are keeping it very simple with a beginner project again that would be perfect for you to sell online and make some income from your aura so we're going to be using some plywood today and we are going to make an alphabet puzzle for kids it's gonna be amazing you're gonna love it we will get right into it but first let's talk about what materials you're gonna need for this project for this project you're going to need two pieces of walnut plywood I'm using the light walnut plywood that is new for the glowforge aura but if you're using traditional proof grade materials you could also use medium walnut plywood or light will not fly what it just really depends on how thick you want your puzzle to be but for me I'm going to be using this new light walnut plywood that is compatible with the glow Forge Aura and I'm going to be using two 12 by 12 sheets of that Highway today a quick note about proof grade materials so proof grade materials are made by glowforge so that they are safe and compatible with your blowforge aura you can use any sort of proof grade materials when you're cutting with your aura but the added benefit of using the ones from glowforge especially as a beginner is they have this little QR code right here on the bottom that the internal camera will read when you place it it inside your glowforge and it will automatically adapt the cut settings and speed to be perfect for that material so if you're a beginner like me I highly recommend going with the glowforge brand proof grade materials just for that added benefit of not having to mess with the settings of your blowforge cut speed and pressure and it'll just do all that for you so other materials you're going to need today are paint you can use any kind of acrylic paint I'm not entirely sure what colors I'm going to use yet but this will be to paint the actual alphabet letters of the puzzle so just pick a color scheme maybe three four or five colors that you feel like will look good together and it would go with the kind of puzzle you're looking to create along that same line you are going to need some paint brushes for that paint and then you are also going to need some wood glue to hold these two pieces of wood together I'm using Gorilla Wood Glue ultimate I'm not sure what makes it so ultimate but it is just Gorilla Wood Glue so definitely have some of that on hand so that you can put the two pieces of wood that we're going to cut together today with all that being said that's pretty much all you need if you want a clamp to hold your two pieces of wood together while the glue bonds you can do that but that's totally optional and for the ultimate um it really works very quickly so that's not totally necessary but if you're using a slower bonding wood glue maybe consider a clamp to kind of hold these tightly together while that wood Bond dries with that being said that is all your materials for today's project so let's go ahead and Dive Right In so the design we're using today is actually directly from the glowforge catalog it's this medium plywood ABC puzzle so if you're wanting to do this along with me today you can actually grab this file directly from the glowforge catalog by just going to app.glowforge.com and then clicking on catalog here at the top and then you can search directly for this design by its name so again this is a great design that you could sell online these are really really popular on Etsy right now and as you're about to see it does not take a ton of effort with our glow forward Aura so I'm going to go ahead and click on that design and bring it into my workspace here I'm going to make a couple of quick changes because I don't want to use the pass-through slot today if you've made changes to your design by the way just a quick note you can click reset design and the glowforge will the glowforge app will go ahead and reset it to the original instructions of that uh catalog design so that way you never lose anything if you make changes like we are about to so as you can see we've got this kind of square area here that's going to cut out our letters and then we have a second Square that's going to serve as the backing for our puzzle and I'm just going to separate these into two separate layers so that we can work a little easier today and not use that passthrough slot so I'm going to right click this one and hit cut and then I'm going to just right click anywhere in my workspace and hit to paste as a new step so this is going to allow those to be two separate steps in our workspace and that way I can go ahead and just click on this second one and click to ignore it for now because I want to cut this all at once and then I'm going to go back and ignore this first step and cut the Second Step separately so that way I'm not having to focus on two things at once I just want to worry about the front right now and then we'll go back and worry about this piece second so we've got our first layer here and it's got our Alphabet letter cut outs and it also has kind of a cut out for that piece we're going to cut that first on our plywood and then we're going to come back and cut our backing piece separately which is why I chose to click ignore on that piece for now okay if that was complicated it's all going to make sense here in just a second when we start cutting which we are about to do because we are totally ready so this is ready to be cooked let's go ahead and put our material into our glowforge and get started okay so because we're ready to put our material in our glowforge we are going to do QR side up so the glowforge can read it and we're just going to place it right there in the center you do not need to take off that protective film The Glow Forge is actually going to cut right through it so we're just going to let it get warmed up here and in a second it will render on our computer screen that it sees the material inside and it will adjust for those cut settings again all pieces of proof grade material have like a layer on top and a layer on the back that are just these protective layers and you do not take those off before cutting so as you can see my app here has updated and it's telling me it's ready to print I can even click in this top right corner and see that my aura and my air filter are both ready to go and attached correctly which is always good you never want to cut without your air filter being properly functioning and I can also see that my design is really well centered on my material so we shouldn't have any problems there so I'm going to go ahead and click print and it's going to start preparing my design it's going to come to life the laser is going to get into position here it's going to make sure it's all calibrated that's going to take a couple seconds and then once the button right here starts blowing we will be ready to start printing so we're going to let it warm up for a second and then it's time for the magic to happen okay our go button is now glowing so we're going to go ahead and press it and we are off to the races on this print our Aura is telling us it's going to take about 36 minutes to print this top layer and the second layer should be much quicker so I'll show you a little bit of the action while it's printing but then ultimately we'll take a little break and we'll come back when we're ready to cut the second layer okay our first cut is officially done so we're just going to open up the lid now that the glove board is telling us it is complete you can go ahead and pull it out and place our second piece of wood right in the tray where we have the first one and then we're going to go ahead and go onto our screen here and we're going to set the second part to cut and ignore the first part so let's go through that process on the computer and then we are ready to cut again okay so now that our first print is done we can dismiss our notification and then we're actually going to go to these two and select to ignore them and to cut this one and we're just going to move it on to our actually you know what we're going to do since these are exactly the same as each other I'm just going to delete this one and I'm going to set to cut just this outline that we already cut just to double make sure that it matches and then we're going to make sure that we're ignoring those letters and then we are ready to press print so once again our glow 4 just gonna come to life over here it's going to calibrate and adjust its settings to make sure it is perfectly ready to print and then once our button starts glowing here we will be ready to cut our second layer so I'm going to set my computer aside so while that's calibrating we're going to go ahead and take a look at this first layer that cut and go ahead and pop out our letters and pop out our outline just to make sure everything Cuts perfectly it looks really nice so far so far so good just kind of peeling it away from this docking layer here oh our button is glowing let's go ahead and get that second one cutting okay our second cut is complete so we're going to go ahead and open the lid pull out that cut and I'm just going to set it aside for now we're going to focus on getting our letters and our top layer all popped out and then we will worry about painting them I've already flipped this over to the back here and I'm just going to peel off this little protective layer this is also where like if you have a weeding Hook from working with like a Cricut sometimes it's easy to like use that weeding hook to help you lift the corner of your protective layer but most of the time you can just get it with your hands depending on how the cut turned out you may have like some lingering pieces that you have to kind of work at getting off we're going to try to avoid that but you never know how it's all going to turn out so we'll use our weeding hook to get those after the fact feeling pretty well some pieces are wanting to come off here with the backing layer so I'm just being mindful to set those off to the side got done now we're going to work on popping our letters out and as we do that we're going to peel the front layer off I'm going to grab my weeding hook for this I think it's going to make it go a little quicker if you do use your weeding hook for this be very careful because it is a softer wood and you don't want to cause any unnecessary indentions as you um get that hook in there the only thing we haven't popped out yet is the little a it's for some reason oh we forgot to have so I'm just gonna slowly tip it up since this is the back of our puzzle it's just a little stuck right there there we go got it and our V is the only other thing that caused us problems right here so I'm gonna look at that when we get to the painting stage to kind of clean up this line right here and see what went wrong other than that it looks like everything cut pretty perfectly so let's just peel our letters and then kind of do some looking at what we've got to work with as I finish with my letters I'm just going to make sure I set the tab pieces off to the side just in case I need them I don't think I need them I think they're just trash but I just want to keep them together as I assemble my puzzle just in case I'm missing something and then the little interior parts of the letters I'm just setting off um to the side in a separate location in case I want to use them in the puzzle honestly I love the process of peeling the backing layer away it's kind of the same satisfaction as traditional weeding but better somehow it's like peeling a sunburn that's what it's like also we are about to get to the painting part of this project and just a reminder that the painting on this project is totally optional the natural wood veneer is really pretty I'm just using the paint to give this project a little more contrast and a little more like kid friendly feel I guess but you definitely can leave this unfinished or you can sell it that way that's totally an option the next step is optional just want to make sure that is known keep in mind that this design did come straight from the glowforge catalog and you can buy this design for just 3.99 for unlimited prints so you could definitely pay for this design and just do it as much as you want it to the little QR code on our Z is not wanting to come off I'm going to play with it again when we get to the painting step but also I'm about to paint over it so it doesn't really matter all right all of our letters are done we do need to peel the backing layer off of this guy oh that is satisfying I'm gonna go ahead and try to get this kicked up so I can hopefully get this all in one piece that would be oh so nice but also probably a little unrealistic it's really just about working your angles you know it's about tearing in the right direction so that it will work well every time so close nearing the finish line that means I gotta decide what colors I want to paint these letters we're going to set this piece off to the side we're going to move all our debris out of the way here we will clean that up before we start painting we're gonna go ahead and pop out our next layer I'm really scared I'm gonna rip it or it's gonna break because that back section does like to hang on tight remember that time I told you it would all come off in one piece did I stutter that was fine okay let's peel off the other side oh no is this side not gonna come off on one piece that would be so tragic no it is not tragic I think in my effort to peel this away I made a little I created a little rip that's fine we're about to glue them together and you'll never know once again we have a little bit of issue here whoa got it okay so I'm gonna take a little piece of like sanding paper actually I might be able to do it with my kneading hook I just have a little bit of inconsistency there I could also probably take some scissors and fix that from where I accidentally ripped it we are learning as we go and also remember that the glow Forge Aura is still very new at the time of me making this video it doesn't even exist yet so keep that in mind that these cut settings are still being perfected and they get better every day I've actually already noticed some cut settings getting changed in the glowforge aura system and they really do get better and better all the time that's one thing I love about blow Forge is their team is constantly improving and constantly making things better so I think that when I do that cut setting next time I might make it just a little bit stronger and then save it as a custom setting and it would probably help avoid some of that tearing that we saw happen but again that setting might literally be changed by the time you even use this material okay we have both of our pieces so now it's time to wood glue our puzzle together just like this the letters Piece Will glue right on top of our backing layer and I'm going to go ahead and start that process and then while our wood is bonding and drying I will start painting my litters so again I'm using Gorilla Glue today I've never used this glue before so we're gonna see how she how she does I have a feeling if it's anything like most Gorilla Glue oh no that was a lot okay it's okay okay we're just gonna use a little less down here we'll just clean up any mess that we make you're a pro at working with wood glue you're probably judging me right now that's okay I deserve it I feel like that's probably good right there right okay I'm so scared okay I'm going to lay it down wow that was all right we're gonna lay it down on top I'm gonna press it down I'm gonna make sure we're all lined up oh look at it it's so pretty okay I'm gonna push down here to make sure we're getting a good Bond and then I'm going to take a Q-tip and I'm going to get all that excess glue out okay let me go get a Q-tip be right back we definitely do not want it to dry like that so again just pressing down in all the areas here then I'm just going to take my little Q-tip that is a lot of glue or just pretend like it happened um again I am very new to the working with wood process here so we're learning as we go we're learning as we go that's why I got a lot of Q-tips I just want to make it as clean as possible here so that's why I'm using the Q-tip because it's really precise and it's allowing me to really like get in the corners there knowing that it's maybe going to take a few Q-tips but that's okay so we're just going one letter at a time running along the edges making sure we've got really clean lines here we don't have a ton of glue seeping out obviously some areas are a little more extra than others if you're like me and this is your first time making this project which it probably is if you're watching this video be patient with yourself okay this is pretty good this is looking good we have a random blue spot on the back don't ask me how that got there I don't know but we're gonna clean it up real fast so we don't glue our puzzle to our table and then we're going to set this aside so it can cure a little bit while we work on painting our letters so I'm just again set all this stuff off to the side I'm going to get a little wet paper towel really fast to wipe that up and then we are ready to paint I'm actually just gonna get a new paper towel entirely because this has some glue on it okay as we switch from Blue to paint we're just cleaning up our workspace here making sure that we have a good clean surface and let's lay out our letters and our paint here comes the fun we only really need to paint one side although that's entirely up to you if you want to paint both I'm just kind of eyeballing where these are all going to go all of a sudden I've forgotten my alphabet okay that's fine let's get our colors so here's all the colors that I am interested in I'm not sure what I'm going to actually use we're gonna figure that out right now I know I want to use this cute little light blue I love that I think it's adorable and I really enjoy this purple pink I always have to do a pink oh but maybe like a pale pink instead maybe we'll go kind of pastels so maybe some white yellow then we have to have a green but we already have a purple so we can get rid of that we already put blue maybe it's two Blues maybe orange and no white maybe no green I think I like that I'm gonna get a little plate to put my paint on I'll be right back okay I found a little paint palette so we're gonna use that and we're just going to make sure we have a little of each color oh I kind of like it without the white too maybe we'll set our white off to the side we might not use it we'll see how it goes it's been a bit since I've used some of these pinks so I'm anticipating some separation look at these happy happy Colors oh I've already gone paint on myself for like just a minute in let's just go in order and we'll just kind of use our smaller paint brush here and just start painting our letters oh wow the paint really goes on really nicely I was thinking we might need a second coat but we actually might the hardest challenge is going to be making sure my Strokes look even okay so we have one two three four five colors so it'll be pink yellow orange purple blue pink and then we'll just have to wash our brush in between each one well I think that will be if the sides look really messy because of how like kind of crazy I'm being painting the tops we made half the paint though yellow orange purple blue pink yellow orange purple blue pink yellow orange purple blue I got way too much paint in these little Wells that's all right we're gonna be a little wasteful on paint I'm so sorry decided there's really not a good way to do this without kind of painting your finger a little bit that's okay these will definitely need a second coat next will be yellow you can also spray paint these if you had little color spray paints on hand I feel like that would probably be a little easier dry a little quicker than what I'm doing but you know what there's really no a lot wrong when you're just learning and playing I'm not loving this yellow right now so I'm hoping I will start loving it more in a minute time for orange and then I will spare you all we'll take a little break and come back after I do our second coat because they are definitely going to need it I almost accidentally dipped my paintbrush into yellow which would have been not good at this point if you are doing this project I would recommend unless you just love painting which I actually do happen to love spray paint is the way to go with these puppies it's going to be easier for sure okay first coat is done just like that let's take a little break I'm gonna do my second coat and then we will put our puzzle together okay I have officially done the second coat of paint and the third coat on some of these letters and I feel like it turned out so cute such a cute little beginner project with the glowforge aura and definitely something you could sell online I feel like it was really easy to cut I will say that if you do this project I would recommend spray paint I would also recommend making sure you're painting the correct side of the letters because even the ones that look symmetrical are not and also just a gentle reminder that this backing looks like a square it is not a square so make sure you line it up in the correct orientation between the two boards because that can be a little finicky as well ultimately I really enjoyed this project I think it would sell really well on Etsy it was beginner friendly it was easy to make I love the end result I love the little painted letters I may make my own template for this just to make it a little bit easier and a little more symmetrical with some of like the letters in the backing but for something that you get directly out of the glowforge catalog I think it's a 10 out of 10 and it was really a fun one so don't forget to hit like And subscribe we'll be doing tons more glowforge oral projects as we move forward and I will see you back here next week [Music]

Channel: itslauralambert

Views: 4,591

Keywords: glowforge aura, laser cut puzzle, glowforge projects, glowforge tutorials, glowforge pro, glowforge 3d laser printer, glowforge software tutorial, Glowforge projects, Laser cutting, Laser cutting tutorial, Crafting, Glowforge vs Cricut, Laser cutter, Wooden puzzle, Alphabet puzzle, Educational toys, DIY educational toys, Glowforge crafting, DIY kids toys, Laser cut toys, Glowforge Alphabet Puzzle, DIY Alphabet Puzzle, ABC Puzzle, what is glowforge, real glowforge owner

Id: GM3lJKUHdsg

Length: 25min 12sec (1512 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 25 2023