I love fun, cute little Valentines. And I love doing little things to make special memories for my kids. This wooden Llama Valentine Postcard is very easy and can even be used for school valentines or sent through the mail for a fun Valentine surprise! (And it doesn’t have to just be for kids!)
These 4″ x 6″ postcards can be made with a variety of materials. I used 1/8″ birch plywood that I purchased from Etsy.com in this example. They can be finished with your choice of colors or left natural like you see here. I think they would be really fun to be colored by kids and then addressed with acrylic paint markers. If there is any concern about damage or dirtiness during shipping, you can always wrap them in shrink wrap after they are fully finished and dried before shipping.
REMINDER: TEST, MASK (if needed) & DON’T FORGET TO VENT & SET FOCUS HEIGHT
Let’s Make A Llama Valentine Postcard!
- First, download the Llama Valentine Postcard design from my design library.
- If you are using masking, apply masking to the material.
- Place your material into the Glowforge. Secure the material to the bed of the machine. For this, I use honeycomb pins.
- Upload the design to the Glowforge dashboard. Move the design to the location where you want to cut the board.
- Set your material to the appropriate setting.
Materials and Supplies Needed:
- 1/8″ plywood, approximately 5″ x 7″ sheet or larger (can use other thicknesses if desired)
- Isopropyl alcohol
- Acrylic paint or dye, etc., color of your choice
Tools:
- Glowforge, laptop or other device compatible with Glowforge
- weeding tool (optional)
- Microfiber cloth
- a couple of paint brushes of different sizes (optional)
- calipers to check the exact height of your material (or use “auto” setting)
- In the left bar, set the groups for the address lines and stamp outline to “Ignore.”
- Set the other groups as follows: Llama face – Engrave, 195 LPI Postcard outline: Cut Llama and word outlines: Score
- Print.
- Next, flip the postcard over, while keeping the remaining material in place. This will ensure proper alignment.
- Set all groups except the address lines and stamp outline to “Ignore.”
- Then, set the address lines and postage stamp outline to “Score.”
- Print.
- Lastly, finish your design as desired – paint, dye, seal or leave natural. For ideas of ways to finish the design, check out some of my favorite supplies to use!
I’ve heard that these can be mailed as-is using a “non-machineable stamp.” I have not yet verified this. Once I verify this, I will update this post.
You (or your kids) can easily personalize these with acrylic paint markers. Another option is to add your own text at step 10 above in the Glowforge dashboard, or doing this prior to uploading the file into the Glowforge dashboard using software such as Inkscape or Illustrator.
Please share your postcards! I can’t wait to see how yours turn out!
Always,
-Ally
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