Festive Countdown

In this month’s “In The Labs at Christmas” project, Todd shows us how to make a Christmas countdown desk calendar ideal for sprucing up your workspace or to add merriment to your mantel using cartoon characters as a fun way to help you count the days to Yuletide. This is a perfect project for anyone looking for workshop ideas to create extra special seasonal home décor or make unique family gifts for your Christmas-themed Etsy shop. Why not get your children or grandchildren to help you add a dash of paint or fit some lights to bring your Christmas crafting to life and set the scene for wintry window displays, merry mantelpiece decorations, or snowy stocking fillers.

Todd shows you how to create this calendar frame with single-sided reindeer and gingerbread house models using two different techniques in Aspire. First he generates a high-resolution 3D clipart of the reindeer, speedily importing an STL file using the new enhanced import functionality. Todd then quickly models the gingerbread house converting a doodle sketch to vectors and uses the sculpting functionality to add organic shapes like the snow and chimney with the help of the new freehand drawing tool. Finally, he effortlessly models the front and back of the two-sided number blocks using the new live model composition tools. Todd machines the project in contrasting pine and pallet board to make the number blocks stand out then adds clear coat and a splash of white, red and brown paint to pick out the snow and reindeer features as a special finishing detail.

This FREE project comes with the file(s) for you to download from your V&CO account along with a PDF document that highlights some of the key important steps to help you get through your project. For those of you yet to try our software packages, why not download our FREE trial software here: https://www.vectric.com/free-trial.

We love to see what you make so whatever your seasonal style, try out one of the projects for yourself then share your creative Christmas inspiration on the Vectric Forum or tag us on our socials.

Merry Christmas Making!