Pretty stationary

As I wound down my PhD, I started spending more time at the UNC Makerspace. That’s where you can use a laser cutter or a vinyl cutter, do some 3D printing, or duck into the woodshop, and use fancy bottles of glue, and get access to paint and a sewing machine and more and more. I always wish I could have spent more time there.

I made a design of an angel based on an outline from works of a Swedish sculptor. A student working at the Makerspace helped me figure out how to go from the picture of the angel to just the outline that I needed in Adobe Illustrator.

First, I just made stickers of the angel, cut into vinyl:

I tweaked it a few times, and finally, I stuck two angels together, so that they formed the letter “L”. I also spelled out o -v – e, so the entire thing looked something like:

And then, I half-way laser-cut that angel onto this piece of printed paper:

It’s only half-way laser-cut so that the angel doesn’t fall out. So you can see the outline, but the angel stays attached. Who knew a laser could cut a depth with that much precision?

I already wrote the letter on it, so the streaks are where I smeared the ink out. I thought the angel looked very nice with the fairies, and you know, this is a one of a kind production! No other piece of fairy paper like that has this exact angel on it. So I sent this to a very special person.

And I also made some other laser-cut “angel L’s” that did pop out, like this:

I think they are very, very pretty. I always wondered, when I saw intricate designs cut out, “did they really do that with scissors?” Now I know it’s with the laser!