by Jared Hart
Getting tired of the same old cookie cutters you use every holiday season? It’s actually really easy to make your own! While teaching a patron how to use our 3D printers, they introduced me to a handy website called CookieCad. Using this site, you can learn how to make custom cookie cutters using your own art.
How to Make Custom Cookie Cutters
First draw out the design you would like to turn into a cookie cutter. I recommend drawing in black on a white background. Also, try to keep your drawing simple so it’s easy for the webapp to interpret.
Upload Your Artwork
Take a photo of your drawing or export your digital sketch and upload it into the CookieCad Webapp. Once you upload your image, the webapp will create a 3D rendering of how your cookie cutter will look.
The default option is set to “Cutter,” creating only an outline of a shape. If you have internal lines that you would like indented into your dough, open the “Thing to Make” dropdown and change it to “Imprint Cutter. This is also the page where you can decide how large you would like your cookie cutter to be as well. There are many other settings you can fine-tune, although some of those are only available if you choose to create a Premium Account.
Download and Print the Model
Once you have adjusted the settings to your liking, click the “Download STL” button underneath the rendering. You can now open this file in your preferred slicing program to print using a 3D Printer.
Using the 3D Printers in Ignite
Before using the printers in Ignite Studio, patrons are required to take a short 2-part certification course to learn the process. If you are interested and would like to get certified, check out the course here.
In order to make your printed model food safe, you will need to add a post-print finish. There are a few options for food safe coating including Shellac by Rust-Oleum. Other food safe coatings include silicone, epoxy, resin, and polyurethane. Printing items to be used with foods is done at your own risk. Ignite cannot guarantee the food safeness of prints made in our studio.
NOTE: 3D printed cookie cutters are not dishwasher safe–hand wash only.
If you use CookieCad to create some custom cookies, we’d love to see them! Feel free to share them on the Ignite Community Discussion Board on Facebook. Happy Making, and Happy Holidays!
