Recycled Cardboard Business Cards

Step 1

Open up biz_card_composite.svg. This is a composite of the two stages used to make the business cards. I'm guessing that you want to put your own logo and info into this card. Remove my logo and info and replace it with whatever vector graphics you want. Use vector graphics. Do not raster. Raster takes forever.

Use this as a template for creating the sheets of cards. Save the svg with your info in it. Now save it as the [name of your company]_template.svg. Delete the park bench pieces but leave the graphics. Save again.

Use the x_by_3_Quick2si.svg files to set up your graphics. Open them up. Delete what is there and import your graphics cuts. Space them onto a 4 in by 3 in grid. Notice how the template is 3.998 in by 2.998. Space all your cards at exact intervals of 4 by 3. When you are done select everything and move them to .001 (x) and .001 (y). This gives you a .001 border around the entire project. I found out the hard way that the laser printer cannot print vectors that are right up against the edges of the document. Without this border, your file will fail.

Step 2

Once you have your graphics ready, put some cardboard into the laser. The settings for the graphics are very touchy. You want to burn a line into the cardboard that is not too deep or else the text will get all goofed up. However, it needs to be deep enough to see. I've found that these settings work good:

Speed 		100 Power		   8 Frequency 	500

Burn your graphics.

Step 3

Pick the correct cutout and burn away. Try these settings:

Speed 		100 Power 		100 Frequency 	5000