Do you think plywood is just building material? It turns out that this is also a great option for making crafts and souvenirs. If you like to make gifts with your own hands, then this article is for you. Here you will find interesting ideas for DIY crafts using a jigsaw or laser cutting.
Gift Ideas
Plywood is a very convenient material for the manufacture of various products. From this board you can make yourself toys for children, interior elements, figurines, garden figures, paintings and other trinkets. What about the present?
Of course, plywood products are perfect as a present to your loved ones. They will especially appreciate the fact that you took the time to do something special with your own hands.
Here are some ideas for making plywood souvenirs.
For children
It's no secret that children love to receive gifts, especially in the form of toys, then why not make a toy out of plywood with your own hands? For example, such a wonderful colorful pencil stand in the form of a sneaker will become a wonderful addition to the nursery, you can also make similar animal-shaped coasters.
If there is a desire to make a toy, then you can make parts yourself (or buy ready-made ones) and assemble a figure from them: an airplane, a car, or any other you wish. You can also make a whole organizer out of plywood, which will contain all the necessary things.
This craft is not only useful for the child, but also interesting, while it can be beautifully designed. This craft is suitable as a gift for adults.
Women
Women appreciate when a gift is made with their own hands, from the heart.How to choose the idea of a simple, but at the same time beautiful and useful gift? For example, there is a great idea for creating watches from plywood. It all depends on your imagination.
Watches can be made in the style of minimalism, if you want something more original, you can decorate them manually, purchase special stickers or decorate with various decorative elements.
To make such a souvenir, you need a plywood disk, clockwork and arrows. Each housewife appreciates the cosiness created by small things.
For example, a house for storing tea bags can serve as a necessary accessory. Agree that cans and boxes in which tea was sold do not add any comfort. And such a house looks very original and cute, with such an craft it will be much more pleasant to drink tea. Even such commonplace things as photo frames, hot coasters can become an original gift made by yourself from plywood.
For men
Even for men there is an original gift from this wonderful material. Such a present may be a stand for wine or other alcohol.
It is made relatively simply, at minimal cost, this souvenir looks simple and tasteful. If you show imagination, then you can make such crafts in various variations and forms. Men in a gift appreciate simplicity and benefit, so for a presentation you can make a shelf out of plywood: with or without a pattern - you decide, this is a matter of taste
Do it yourself
We examined several ideas for plywood souvenirs, but did not talk about how to make them. There are 2 main ways: manually - using a jigsaw and using a laser.
Jigsaw
To get started, you need a certain set of tools: a hand or electric jigsaw, a set of files of different sizes, hacksaws and drills. Also, other materials will be needed for additional processing, such as sandpaper, varnish, etc.
You need to start by applying a drawing to the plywood sheet.
This can be done using a carbon paper, template, or manually (if you have such an ability). Next, we move on to sawing out the details or the pattern.
Of course, it is much more convenient to do this with an electric jigsaw, but it is also possible to do it manually. After that, it is necessary to make a fine finish for aesthetics: sand (especially the edges) and varnish. You can decorate it at will.
It is important to remember that before working you need to carefully read the safety rules of the tool with which you prefer to work.
If you are starting to work with a jigsaw for the first time, then you need to find simple patterns for sawing to practice a bit. For example, consider the manufacture of napkin holders step by step.
This is a relatively simple craft, but still requires some skill.
- We start by selecting a drawing. There are different types of napkin holders with all kinds of patterns, but we chose one of the simple ones, these are suitable for beginners.
- Next, print this drawing and transfer it to the plywood sheet., suitable for the format, in any way convenient for you: with the help of a carbon paper, redrawing by hand, etc.
- We proceed to sawing parts. If you use a manual jigsaw, then you need to start work first with a file or a hacksaw, and then continue with a jigsaw. With an electric jigsaw, things are easier, because with it, work is much faster and safer. In our case, we cut 3 parts according to the scheme: the bottom and 2 side parts. First, it’s better to cut out small details, in our case this is a pattern.
- After cutting the parts, you can proceed to their assembly and gluing. Optionally can be varnished and painted.
With laser
Making plywood souvenirs using laser cutting is much easier and faster than manually. However, this requires much greater costs. But if you are a happy owner of such a device, then you can easily get to work.
As in the previous paragraph, we start the work by choosing the drawing of the product you like (remember that you can draw it yourself or find a finished drawing). We will consider the work on the example of manufacturing a feeder.
- We will prepare this drawing. It can be taken as a jpg image or modified in the CorelDRAW program.
- Next, we connect a laser device to electricity.
- We load the circuit into the software on the computer for laser cutting and set the settings in the program for cutting plywood.
- Install the plywood sheet in the working field of the laser installation.
- You must make sure that everything is installed correctly. Some devices are much smaller in size, so sometimes the details will have to be placed on two sheets of plywood.
- Now run the program.
- Separate the cut out parts of the feeder from the base and glue the product as indicated in the diagram.
- If desired, you can decorate the craft or leave it in this form. Laser-fired edges add some aesthetics, so no additional processing is required.
Of course, in order to make souvenirs from plywood, you need some skills and means, but if you learn a little, you can always make a gift yourself.
As soon as you learn how to make simple products from plywood, you can proceed to more complex ones or try to make schemes for cutting parts yourself. Then your souvenirs will be a unique gift. It’s worth a little imagination - and you will succeed!
Making napkin holders can be seen step by step in the next video.
