DIY Wood Tags

DIY wood tags cut on the xTool F1 are so fun to make. Let me show you, step by step how I created these shamrock wood tags for St. Pat’s.

Looking to add a touch of Irish charm to your St. Patrick’s Day gifts? Look no further!

In this post, we’re diving into the world of DIY laser-cutting with a fun and festive project: St. Patrick’s Day Wood Tags. With just minutes on the xTool F1 Laser cutter/engraver, you can create personalized tags adorned with a delightful 3D playful message, “You’ve been shamrocked.”

These laser-cut wood tags are the perfect finishing touch to any St. Paddy’s Day gift, adding a touch of handmade elegance and whimsy. Whether you’re gifting treats, beverages, or heartfelt tokens of appreciation, these St. Pats gift tags are sure to delight recipients and elevate your presentations.

Join me as I show the step-by-step process of crafting these charming DIY laser-cut tags, perfect for spreading the luck of the Irish this St. Patrick’s Day!

If you love creating your own tags…wood or otherwise you will love these posts too!

Finished DIY Wood Tag for St. Patrick's Day.

I have always wanted to be able to laser cut my own wood tags, tiered tray decor, home decor and more. Now, I can do this anytime I want with my new xTool F1 Laser Cutting/Engraving machine. This really is a dream for me. The folks at xTool reached out to me. They offered to send me this amazing machine in exchange for some fun step by step projects. This is my second post and I am loving it.

If you saw my Free Daisy SVG post then you saw that I already engraved the bamboo top of a glass cup and it came out so cute. But…I am not going to lie. There is definitely a learning curve with the settings but the more I work with the xTool F1 I get better at tweaking them until they are right.

Supplies needed:

Let’s get into this step by step tutorial!

Step 1: Create Your Design

We are a big St. Patrick’s Day town here in Emmetsburg, Iowa. So I knew I wanted to create shamrock tags and add them to gifts for my friends and co-workers.

The shamrock I used for this project was from Creative Fabrica.

I had downloaded the XCS (xTool Creative Space) for the daisy bamboo lid so I was all set with that. So, I opened it up and brought in the shamrock design.

To do that click on Image in the upper left corner, click on insert and find your shamrock in your files and click open.

Using xTool Creative Space to design DIY wood tags

Once it is in the program you will need to resize it to fit in the cutting area. The xTool F1 has a small cutting space so you can only make smaller projects.

You will see the box that comes up to the right of the image. Click on “trace image”.

It will create a 2nd layer.

You want to delete the first layer so all you have is layer 2, the outline layer.

Then I needed to add a circle where I wanted the hole in the tag.

Click on the shape icon on the left side of the screen. Then click on the circle. It will add a circle on the cutting space. Resize it and place it where you want it

You won’t see this in my photos because I totally forgot to add the circle until I had already cut a couple of the shamrocks. Woops!

But…I was actually able to line up the circle only and re-place those shamrocks into the machine and cut the hole. So they were not wasted

Step 2: Adding Text

Once the shamrock was looking good I wanted to add the text that would be engraved on the shamrock. I wanted it to say “You’ve been”.

To add text click on the text icon on the left side of the screen. A box will appear. It always has the word “hello” in it.

My first instinct is to highlight the text in that box and re-type the text you want but that isn’t right. You need to delete the word “hello” in the box to the right then you can choose your text, the size, etc. I usually choose my size by unlocking the sizes at the top of the screen and measuring my project to see how big or small it needs to be. Or by grabbing one of the corner boxes and changing the size by using the mouse.

Then I moved the text to where I wanted it to engrave on the shamrock.

There are three settings: score, engrave and cut. Choose engrave.

Once I had the text where I liked it I clicked on the first word, held down the shift key and then clicked on the second word. Then grouped them together by clicking on the group icon at the top of the screen. I also made sure this text grouping was set on “engrave”. You can see this in the picture below on the right side of the screen.

Now we can choose the settings for the engraving. The settings allow you to change the power, the speed, the lines per cm and how many passes you want. You can also choose between the blue diode laser or the infared laser. I used the blue light for this project.

I am still learning but I am pretty sure the power is how deep the engraving is, the speed is how fast the laser moves and the lines per cm is how close together the laser cuts are to each other.

The settings below worked really well for me.

Then we need to group the shamrock and the circle for hole. Make sure they are set to cut.

I used the blue light for the cutting and used the settings below on the right side of the screen. The power was set at 100 and the speed was set at 5 and just 1 pass.

I originally cut the word “shamrocked” out but the font did not work. It was too skinny between the letters and it broke apart really easily. I ended up deleting it and cutting the words separately.

Once you have the settings ready you can start the framing.

Step 3: Framing

The framing function is soooo helpful when you are trying to get your engraving in the right place or getting the most out of your materials without wasting any wood.

It puts a blue frame on your materials as to where it will cut or engrave so you can adjust as needed before cutting.

I have a video below that shows the framing, the engraving and the cutting of the shamrock. It is rough so don’t judge me. LOL! I was trying to film and run the program at the same time. It has not been edited at all so this is real time.

I cut all of the shamrocks out one by one.

Step 4: Cutting Out the Text

The DIY wood tags need to say “You’ve been shamrocked” so I still needed to cut out the word “shamrock”. As I mentioned earlier, the first time I tried it the letters were too fine and it didn’t hold together after being cut.

I set out to find a different font and I landed on Forever Dreaming. It is a retro font that I use a lot.

When I brought the text in the letters were spaced apart. I changed the spacing to -0.7. You can see that on the right side of the screen in the text box. But you can see that all of the letters are still separate from each other. Which means they will cut individually instead of as one piece. To fix this click on the “weld” button at the bottom of the same text box.

Now, as shown in the picture below all of the text has been welded to together to create one piece to cut. This picture also shows the cut settings. I used the same 100 for the power but slowed the speed down just a bit to a 4.

I did not make another video but each word cut out so nicely. And because of the framing I was able to use areas of the same wood piece and fit most of them on the same piece.

Here they are all cut and placed with their shamrocks.

Step 5: Finishing Up!

They are shamrocks so I wanted them to be green. I found some pretty light shades of green in our paint stash. Here are the colors and the brands.

The two colors of green paint used to pain the DIY wood shamrocks

I painted the shamrocks with the Green Tea and the “shamrocked” with the Sour Apple. I tried to be careful about getting paint into the engraved text but a couple of them got a little too much. They are not perfect, but they are cute.

DIY Wood Tag for St. Patrick's Day after the cutting and engraving and painting was all done.

Then I put a little wood glue on the back of the cut out word and glued them onto the shamrock.

Dollar Tree has some fun colored cups that I love to use for small gifts. I got one pack of 8 green cups for $1.25, added some candy, placed them into a cellophane bag and then tied them shut. Adding the tag makes them super fun.

And since the xTool F1 has a green cover I added it to my St. Pat’s themed photos.

What do you think? I love the way these DIY wood tags turned out and I cannot wait to cut out more wood projects. I hope you love them as much as I do.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Michelle

If you love it…pin it!