Mantel Message

Welcome to the Labs sessions! We love to make and share projects with our community and enjoy nothing more than providing you with FREE monthly CNC projects that you can download and cut for yourself!

Each project comes with its own video for you to watch telling the story of what we’re making from start to finish. It includes technical software footage, machining each part in the Labs and finishing the project, and as an added bonus, we throw in a few tips based on our experience! We would love to see what you turned this project into so please share what you’ve made on the Vectric Forum.

In this month’s “In The Labs” at Christmas project, Todd shows us how to make a Christmas mystery Mantel message inspired by a back lit trade show sign. With a message that appears and disappears with the light, this makes for a simple, fun and stylish way to help you decorate your home or create gifts for your Christmas themed Etsy shop. This project is perfect for beginners to tackle, or for the more experienced users looking for fun ideas to keep those children or grandchildren busy with Christmas crafting. Why not make this project into a wintry window ‘shop open’ display, a fun Mantel piece decoration, personalized wedding gift, or even an ‘on air’ sign for the YouTuber in your life.

Todd shows you how to design this single-sided acrylic sign in VCarve sourcing some great Christmassy SVG files to create a fun message. Using the new and improved SVG import functionality, Todd opens the files directly in VCarve adjusting artwork features to customize the message and make it his own. He uses the neat lithophane view to see how it will look when it's backlit, then uses the toolpath preview to adjust for cutting acrylic and adapt the frame to house LED lights, battery and cabling. Why not give your backlit sign an extra edge by creating a theme set with different Christmassy messages in different colored acrylics or woods as a finishing touch.

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!

Which Vectric software do I need to be able to open the free project files?

Versions 11+ of the software

We’ve recently updated your V&CO portal account to include all of the free content available to you in one place. To download the free project files and the full instructions for this project or to take a look at all of the other free content available to you simply login to your V&CO account below:

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