Cookie Stamp

SummaryThis was a project to produce a number of Cookie Stamps for my wife's cutout cookies.InstructionsThis is the process I used to create items such as this Cookie Stamp. I wanted to use Graphtec's Silhouette Studio to design my stamps because it offers an excellent tracing mechanism and ability to wrap text along a path such as a circle. I also wanted to use Autodesk 123Design to import an SVG file as a sketch and then extrude the sketch into a 3D object which could be exported as an STL file. I should mention I have a MAC Mini and would like to be able to use it exclusivly, but I also have various flavors of Windows Operating systems running on it as virtual PC's in Parallels Desktop. What seemed so simple turned out to be quite complicated for reasons I will explain. Silhouette Studio, it turns out will not let you export SVG files with the latest version, so you need an older Version like Version 1.9 to accomplish this. You also must use the premium paid version of Silhouette Studio Designer Edition in order for it to work. There are articles on the internet showing how to run both versions of Silhouette Studio for those who want to use all the latest features that version 3 provides. While AutoDesk 123Design is available (free) for MAC and PC, the MAC version does not properly import SVG files containing text. However, the PC version does work with no issues. The problem with that is that my PC is a virtual PC and Autodesk 123Design runs very slowly and is next to impossible to work on in the virtual environment. I am using Windows 8.1 as my virtual PC. So given the above issues, here is how I go about making a 3D STL file using the above tools. Open Silhouette Studio Designer Version 1.9 on the PC and create a new project. Create your design using the tracing tools, whatever. Save the file changing the extension from .studio to .svg Import the SVG file into AutoDesk 123Desgin (PC version). Save it as a 123 file. Now you can open the 123 File on the MAC and complete extruding the components and exporting the resulting project to an STL file. When creating a cookie stamp, the text must be reversed or mirrored in order to be viewed properly when used to stamp a cookie. Silhouette Studio allows you to mirror the text and place it on a path. Be careful when forcing it to a path. I created a circle as a path. Pulling the text to the circle sometimes places it on the inside rather than the outside of the circle. Using a bigger circle sometimes helps and then you can resize the circle after placing the text. For the handle on the cookie stamp, I placed a cyclinder on the grid of Autodesk 123Desgin and then placed a sphere on top of it. Pulling ths sphere down till it was half way thru to the cylinder produced the handle I then exported as an STL file. I glue the handle to the cookie stamp using PVC cement. I also made a few versions of the handle by modifying it in AutoDesk MeshMixer. This has been a learning experience. Took me two days to sort out all of the issues, but I can now easily create Cookie Stamps in any flavor I like. Some have a picture of a glass on them, others have different sayings. Oh, by the way, I scale the STL file to 35% before printing. You can scale it to suit the size cookie you wish to make. Hope you can benefit from my experience.