Graduation Photo Prop Sign

• Start out by creating Four text boxes from the left side panel.
  • Eat box will be a number of the year you are using for instance “2” “0” “2” “4”
• Once you have your numbers, you will need to move them closer together so they are slightly overlapping each other. 
• Next, we need to create a graduation cap.
  • I googled free clip art of an grad hat, copied and pasted it to xcs. 
  • I traced the image and deleted the original image. 
  • Once trace, I wanted to make this different so I edited the nodes to change up the image.
    • You can do this on the right hand panel when the image is selected.
      • The cap I original brought in had a pointy bottom and I used the edit noted tool to flatten it out.  
  • Once you have the hat how you like move it over the second “2” and place it so it's just overlapping. 
    • Select both objects and on the right side panel click “unite”
• Next, outline of of your object.
  • Select the object and create a outline
    • Click on the outline box on the right side panel
      • You want to make sure there are not inner outlines so make it as big as you can with no inner outlines.
      • Next you will want to make an inner outline of the outline you just made so its back to a smaller size.
• Finally, you can add text of the name of the graduate. 
  • If you use a cursive font dont forget to “Weld” the text.
    • Weld can be found on the right side panel when the object is selected. 

Make sure all of your objects are set to cut and seperated from each other before sending to the laser!

Dont forget to auto measure your material!

Since these are bigger pieces I chose to spray paint these. 

• First I primed them and then I sprayed the backer board white and sprayed the year and the hat blue.
• Painted the name of the graduate white as well.

After everything was painted and dried, I used some wood glue and glued the blue 2024 on top of the white backerboard and then the name on top of that.