I began this project by searching all over Pinterest and coming up with many many ideas. I was thinking of doing a cross, or cherries, but none of those really spoke to me. I finally came up with an idea that really spoke to me because it is a brand I love. I then had to create a step by step process on a Google Doc to follow. I had to plan out everything down to a T.  

I actually purchased Canva Pro for this project but have used it many times since. I had many ideas and I wanted to see what looked the best but didn't end up necessarily doing any of the things I tried out. It did help me get a sense of what I wanted to do and was great for seeing what things would look like. 

I had to decide what size to make this and I wanted to make it roughly big because I wanted to hang this on the wall in my closet. I then had to turn this into a sketch which was pretty easy because its all black lines. I then duplicated my design in case I needed to edit it again and saved this as a DXF.

I had to insert my DXF into Fusion and then create extrusions. I extruded the design in a negative direction at the same height of my material so that the linework was on top of the 3D model. I also extruded the details down to create pockets for the details. After creating the CAD I had to create the CAM. To do this I had to define the size of my stock, identify my model, and then choose a corner of my stock box to set as my 0,0,0 location. 

Creating my toolpaths for this project was a bit difficult. Firstly, I had to create a 2D Pocket. This was so I could use the CNC to cut, but not all the way through my design. I used this on all the parts I wanted to be lower than the outline of my design. This was tricky because it didn't end up working correctly on my first few tries, and I had to redo this many times. I then had to create a 2D Contour which would cut all the way through the outline of my shape.  

After creating my toolpaths, I had to simulate my process to see if it would actually work on the machine. After doing lots of editing to my toolpaths, it finally worked and was ready for the CNC.

After making sure all my toolpaths and everything were correct I did my post-process and sent my design to the CNC. I had to download my G-Code to the CNC computer and then mount my plywood to the CNC by using tape and super glue. I then set my X, Y, and Z coordinates to 0, turned the air compressor on, and ran my job. 

After running my job on the CNC I had to clean it up a lot. I sanded it for about 45 minutes so that the spaces would be flat enough to lay jewels on and paint without looking uneven. 

I painted the background of my wooden piece to match each color of where I wanted to place each jewel so that the background wouldn't just be wooden. 

After painting, I wanted this to look like a piece of jewelry. I decided to order many jewels from Amazon and hand-placed each one. They were about 2mm in size, so this took lots of time. 

I then used Illustrator to create what I wanted to laser cut. I created a background to put my letters on because they did not all stick together. I set my lines to 0.001 thickness and then sent my background and letters to the laser cutter. I cut my background out of white and my letters out of black. 

This part was super tricky because I didn't have a guide for where to put each letter, I just looked at a reference photo and did my best.

I was originally planning on having the letters popping out of the sign using stand-offs, but after spending so much time bedazzling, I realized that  I didn't want to cover any of that up. I then came up with the idea that I would have the letters hanging down so that it would look more like jewelry. This was a bit tricky because I had to attach chains to each part of my sign, but after figuring it out it wasn't that difficult. I then only had hook type of screws and Mr. Supiro helped me bend those so it was a full loop ad would look nice.