I made this for a friend for Christmas. I also wanted to try a project where I painted the 3mm MDF BEFORE making the cuts, and I was pleased with the results.
I painted the MDF boards with two layers of acrylic paint, and after that dried, I sprayed a top layer of clear coat paint so I could wash off any char with water or alcohol. A very wet rag worked well, and I was pleased with the results on the green and red but I had to touch up the white pieces with another coat of paint.
No pictures were taken after the cutting process. The actual cut time was less than 15 minutes.
The “Merry Christmas” words were designed so that everything was welded together and simple to glue.