Finding shapes to use

For this project, you'll need 2 SVG files - one for your outer shape and one for your inner shape.  

 

If this is your first time working with the Cricut, Bambu, or Glowforge machines, we recommend starting out with 2 shapes that don't have any particularly thin lines.

 

Your outer shape can be something basic - like a circle, square, triangle, etc., or you can go for something fun or creative.  For the outer shape, you want to make sure that it is a fully enclosed image with no white space separating different parts.  Below are some examples of shapes that would work well as an outer shape:

 

circlesquare butterflydog

 

Your inner shape can be more complex and include white space.  If this is your first project, we recommend avoiding fine lines and sticking to things that have a bit more bulk to them.  The finer the lines are, the more likely the vinyl from the Cricut is to stick to itself or the 3D printer won't show the detail.  Here are some images that might work with the above shapes.

flowercatleafpaw print

 

 

In the next step, we're going to be layering these.  To give you an idea of what that might look like, you can see them layered below.  At this point, you just need to pick out your shapes - we'll do the layering in another program.

 

circle and flowercat and squarebutterfly and leafdog and pawprint

 

While you can get shapes in many different locations, we often recommend Noun Project Links to an external site.. Their icon library has a variety of shapes that work well with small 3D printers, and many of their icons have a royalty free license.  Noun Project requires a free account to log in and download svg files.  You are welcome to source your .svg files from anywhere, but this walk through assumes that you have an .svg file to work with.

 

For the rest of this project, I'll be using the paint splash and paintbrush images.

From here you can choose to do one of the following:

image.png