Picture This!: Make a Custom Frame to Take Photos With

My best friend Stephanie T. Jones has started a beautiful acrylic earring business, Audacious Abundance, and for their birthday I decided I wanted to make them something to help promote it!

Working alongside my other bestie Sarah P. Lee, we came up with this idea to add a personal touch to their photos. Since they mainly take pictures of earrings, I thought a small frame to hold up to your ear to showcase the jewelry would be a good fit (Sarah is modeling this for me in the picture to the right).

Anyway, while you make this be sure to check out Stephanie's work on Audacious Abundance on Etsy!

• Glowforge laser cutter (I think this could also be done with a Cricut if you want to make it out of paper!)
• Material for cutting: I used cardboard that you can put a cake on (something like this) because it was white and looked like a frame, but you could also use wood, paper, or anything else you want to try!
• Attached SVG file (you could also make it yourself, I just used Illustrator to make two rectangles and the text/embellishments)

Optional: blue painters tape for taping down the corners of the material while in the laser cutter (mine tended to fly away)

I did a few iterations of this design, but the basic idea is that you want to upload this SVG (with your name) to your account on app.glowforge.com and place it where you want it cut. I tried it out in a few different sizes/materials, and here are my recommendations for custom settings:

Cake cardboard settings (Custom):

Cut (for the shape)

• Speed: 125
• Power: 100

Engrave (for the words/design)

• Speed: 335
• Power: 10

However, you could also try their built-in settings for 5/32" Corrugated Cardboard (if you use the cake board) or Medium Basswood Plywood (if you want to use wood!)

Once you've uploaded it, its time to cut!

Press the button and watch it go! They usually provide a time estimate. You'll want to watch it the first time around to see if it moves around. If it does, tape the corners with blue painter's tape!

So depending on the size of your frame, you may have to hold it up close to the subject of your photo. The images I've added are trying to show this idea: when held far away/close to the camera, the frame is fuzzy but you can see my friend Sarah really well; when close to the subject, you can see the subject and the frame, but the camera captures a lot of background.

You'll want to spend some time playing with this to see what works for you!

My friend Stephanie is having fun testing these out for her business-- I hope you enjoy using them too!

Audacious Abundance is on Twitter, Instagram, and Etsy!