{"id":968,"date":"2024-07-15T04:58:41","date_gmt":"2024-07-15T04:58:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.evan.org\/ghg\/?p=968"},"modified":"2024-07-19T18:53:13","modified_gmt":"2024-07-19T18:53:13","slug":"wedding-invitations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.evan.org\/ghg\/building-things\/wedding-invitations\/","title":{"rendered":"Wedding invitations!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I’m getting married at a really pretty venue in Seattle called the Ruins. It looks like this inside:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I wanted to make my own invitations. And I also wanted to learn to use the laser cutter at our local makerspace<\/a>. I thought an invitation replicating the inside of the Ruins would be nice, and making chandeliers using pop-up mechanics seemed like a job the laser cutter would be perfect for – I have a Cricut, but it can’t do detail that fine!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started with some test cuts to see how small the laser cutter could go, and then cut some different chandeliers to see how they would look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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MAN that laser cutter gets some crazy great tiny details!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Some of the different designs I tried for the chandeliers. I was thinking of adding an LED to light them up but it just didn’t really add much when I tried it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

I wanted the chandelier to open and close with the card but couldn’t really find an existing mechanic that would do this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I started by trying to attach the back sides of the chandelier. I added strips connecting four sides and tabs to the outside two. The plan was to have the tabs attached to the card. When you opened the card it would pull the sides open, and the strips would make sure everything spaced itself out. This worked, but assembly was a PAIN and I couldn’t see myself doing this for lots of invitations.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

What I ended up doing is putting a tab on each of the four inner sides and cutting four matching slots for them. The outer two tabs are glued and can’t move, but the inner two slide in and out of the tabs when you open the card.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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