Wife wants gift ideas, what can I make her?

My wife wants to give custom made gifts to her friends/co-workers this xmas using my CNC (ok, that was the reason I got her to allow me to make it in the first place, lol). Can some of you good people share some ideas, and DXF files if you have them?

She was thinking small, so mostly things that can sit on shelves or hang on walls if they do not take up too much space. I have been turning bumper stickers into wooden signs for her since I complete my CNC router but now she wants something a bit more complicated and I cannot think of any good, relatively simple, projects.

This might be a good thread to help others with their christmas gift ideas also so perhaps we can keep it going throughout the year?

I have seen the puzzle threads and the metal art cutting threads but mostly those are things that would appeal to men or children...how about the women in our lives?

Engrave snowflakes and other stuff into thin Maple with the persons
name and the year as Christmas ornaments. You can get some good xmas dxf files and snowflakes here.

Free Cnc Dxf Vector Art Files: snowflake | Free Cnc Dxf Vector Art Files

Excellent idea, I sent the link to my wife with your suggestion. Thank you!

Any more out there?

Last year I machined a ton of cast acrylic, took the cutoffs and cut them into 4"x4" squares, swiped some santa images off the net ran them thru the rastor to vector chook in mastercam. Put some text on them as well. Used a 45 deg engraving bit. We have a santa pub crawl in the Oshawa area of Ontario near Christmas to raise money for cancer, these were give out as little prizes. Generally they all had Santa's head and below sayings like I survived the santa crawl 2009, I puked on the santa crawl, Drunkest female santa, Drunkest male santa, Sexiest santa....stuff like that. They were a real hit and easy to make from scrap.
cheers

Get some Celtic knot patterns and cut them into Christmas ornaments. That's always a good one. I've been doing lithophanes for all my co-workers and family for this christmas. Mine are about 4"x3" and they are coming out awesome. Takes a little machine time but it's well worth it. I'm framing them in wood from a recycled oak pallet I got from work. The HDPE was also scrap I picked up from work and a local plastic company. They can't sell anything that small so they give most of it to me for projects.
Check it out: HERE RoboCNC Tutorial : Making a Lithophane using PhotoVCarve - YouTube

I'm just letting them set them in a window for light instead of making a back lit frame. I will do some LED lighting to my own at some point.
Be sure to search GOOGLE and YOUTUBE for more CNC Lithophane info. If you need feeds and speeds etc, let me know.

I took bars of soap and personalized them.

I took $1 picture frames and did custom engraving for the wife's family, kids teachers, babysitters, etc. I put in some icons & personalized each frame with names, etc. Made a fixture from MDF with a couple clamps. It takes about 5 minutes to program a new frame and about 10 minutes to engrave it. Brush it off, spray a coat of clear, stick in a picture (that's the wife's job) and put a smile on someone's face!

Well, it's getting close to Christmas time again. Each year it seems like Christmas sneaks up faster than it did the year before. Although the saying is usually true that "Christmas is the most wonderful time of the year", for many of us it is also the most costly.
As we all know, this can be an extremely stressful time. If you are one of those scraping by each month just to pay your bills, the added pressure to earn extra money for Christmas can be a little much to handle.
Making extra money is something a lot of us are worried about this time of year. With a combination of the economy, and job instability... you may be among the many searching for ways to make money this holiday season.
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Mfgbydesign, I like the picture frame idea. I'll have to make a couple of those myself. Thanks.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by PropNut

(ok, that was the reason I got her to allow me to make it in the first place, lol)

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Now it's time to teach her how to use your CNC machine.:wave::wave:

Or I suggest some jewels, maybe she will let you have a 4th axis.:cheers::cheers:


Have a nice day.


Jeff

I've made wall plaques with 2.5D models and a nice poem or sentiment personalised to the recipient from the people giving the gift. It's amazing how when it's personalised it means so much more. People generally treasure hand made things that are not only nice, but is unique and personal to them.

Notice I said "things that are nice", I can't tell you how damn loofah pack's we've gotten over the years!

Another gift that always is appreciated, is along the lines suggested earlier but with a slight difference, we occasionaly buy the cheap 6 x 4 photo frames, toss the frame and keep the glass, and cnc a new (usually rectangular) frame out of mdf with a 2.5D model, and again, a poem or relevant sentiment, along with a cutout for the glass, so it becomes a personalised photo frame. It's not only practical, but a very thoughtful gift.

cheers,
Ian

Here is a link to a thread about the 'pill-box' I made for my wife's Valentines Day present. Valentine's Day present for wife

Maybe a little complicated for what you want to do but believe me, she LIKED it a lot.

Don

Not wanting to hijack the thread, but I've gotta say that's a beautiful job you did Don! Walnut's quite a hard timber to machine but gives a good cutting finish that comes up terrific as you have shown. Nice work on the inlay as well!

cheers,
Ian

Thanks Ian The inlay was the clincher.... ;-)

There are instructions in the link I posted on how I did the inlay, actually pretty simple. the hard part was the oval curved top.

Don