I’m sharing a roundup of great laser craft ideas to help you diversify your lineup of product offerings! This post was sponsored by xTool and contains affiliate links.
9 laser craft ideas for your small business
Are you looking for laser craft ideas to expand your small business offerings? I have had a ton of fun experimenting with my laser machines/laser engravers and making things for myself and others. And there are so many ways to be creative when you have a laser (or a few!).
You’ve probably already thought about the obvious things you can make—the things you see at a lot of craft fairs: engraved cutting boards, stickers, road map/city wall art, car decals, t-shirts, and more. These are great options! But why not diversify your offerings with a few other projects? Let’s chat about some of my favorites.
1. Acrylic and wood puzzles
One of my favorite purchases I made when my daughter was first born was an acrylic and wood name puzzle. I got it off of Etsy, and she still has it in her room. And now that I have laser cutting machines, I know exactly how the puzzle was made!
I used my xTool P2 CO2 laser cutting machine to cut different colors of sparkly acrylic letters for the name. Then, for the base, I layered 3mm wood (with cutouts) over a 6mm solid base. I have also made puzzles with pictures instead of names.
Puzzles are a great idea to add to your laser cutting business project lineup because they are endlessly customizable. Name puzzles are a no brainer—but you can also use the same layered approach to create puzzles using pretty much any shape you want.
See my tutorials on How to Make a Puzzle With xTool and my article with 5 Free Laser Cutter Puzzle Projects to learn more about puzzle making!
2. Test tube plant propagation stations
I made my first test tube propagation station many, many years ago when I used some scrap wood from my garage for this tutorial: How to Make a Test Tube Propagation Station. And now that I have a laser cutting machine, it is SO much easier!
Test tube propagation stations are a fantastic way to display plant cuttings while you are rooting them in water. And they are the perfect size for windowsills. I have a few Free Test Tube Propagation SVG Files you can download to get started making these.
All you need to buy outside of the wood for the project is 1″ diameter test tubes, which you can buy online for pretty cheap in bulk. Isn’t this pretty?
3. Engraved trays and trivets
Engraved trays and trivets are also a neat option with a wide range of customization capabilities. Cork trivets are easy to buy in bulk. And once you get the settings down, you can knock out these projects pretty quickly.
I have a few of these cute engraved cork trivets around my house for a variety of uses. They are great to use as coasters, to protect furniture from plants, for hot items in the kitchen, and more.
Bamboo trays are also widely available and easy to customize. I tested out engraving on an Ikea bamboo tray (pictured below), and it turned out so clean! I purposefully did an intricate design to test out the capabilities, and I love using this in the sunroom. See my article about 4 Things to Laser Engrave From Ikea for the settings I used and some more ideas.
4. Houseplant trellises
Obviously you’re going to see a lot of plant-related items in this article because I’m a big houseplant lover! I made a bunch of small houseplant trellises as some of my earliest projects when I got my first laser cutting machine.
Below are two examples of some trellises I’ve made. I’ve used 3mm and 6mm wood depending on the design and the size. I’ve also used acrylic, which is an even better option because it won’t break down after being in wet wood for a couple years.
You can check out my article where I share 16 Free Houseplant Trellis SVG Files to get started! With as popular as houseplants are, I have no doubt that these would be a great laser craft idea to add to your product lineup.
5. Custom necklaces
I used my xTool F1 to engrave this necklace below. It’s such a small piece, but it’s probably one of my favorite laser craft ideas I’ve come across. First I had my daughter write “I love you” on a piece of paper.
Then I took a picture of it and imported it into xTool Creative Space. After messing around with the settings a bit, I was able to engrave my daughter’s writing into this necklace. I don’t wear a lot of jewelry at all, but I love wearing this. For more on this project, see my My xTool F1 Portable Laser Engraver review.
6. Indoor cat houses
If there’s anything I love more than my plants, it’s my cats! And I’m constantly making things for my cats. One of the biggest projects I’ve made with my machines was on my xTool P2 CO2 laser machine—and that’s because it has the biggest workspace out of all of the xTool machines (not accounting for any passthrough extensions or anything).
I designed a few cat houses, but I think my favorite is the one I designed to look like a retro TV. You can download the files for the cat houses you see below in my article 3 Free Indoor Cat House Laser Files. These are sure to sell to cat lovers; we’re willing to do anything for our babies 🙂
7. Coaster sets
I would put coasters under the more “traditional” laser crafting booth product offerings…but that’s because people love them! Why not diversify your coaster lineup, though? Instead of just engraving regular coasters, check out this cute honeycomb pattern I tested out out for myself.
8. Doll or fairy houses
When I first got the air assist attachment on my xTool M1, I wanted to test out how well it performed when doing some intricate engraving. So I downloaded a few fairy house and dollhouse files on Etsy. These projects used 3mm basswood and involved both cutting and intricate engraving.
And then, of course, gluing everything together. But look how amazing the result was on this fairy house! After I made this house, I gave it to my daughter to paint (she loves painting my wood projects). See my article “Air Assist on an xTool M1…is it Worth it?” for more on this project and the air assist attachment.
9. Acrylic earrings
Acrylic earrings are a great option for small business owners to make. They don’t have a high material cost, and I love small projects that help me use up every last bit of my scrap material from other projects! I designed a few Taylor-Swift-themed earrings that I cut on my xTool P2 CO2 laser machine, and I’ll be sharing more about those the future.
In the meantime, here are a few shots of some of the designs we cut out. If you can take advantage of trends with your merch and be timely, that will definitely help pique interest in your products!
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