From SVG Design to Laser Cut Earrings: Design Tutorial

You can turn any SVG design you use for cutting into laser cut earrings with just a few slight modifications.  

Whether your designs are are "intended" for stickers or sublimation, you can use these tricks to design when laser cutting earrings.  (And psst..the exact same process works for keychains and ornaments too!) 

Most SVG files that aren't earring designs won't have a hole for the hardware so that's what we're going to add! 

This can be done in both Silhouette Studio or xTool Creative Space if you're using an xTool laser like I am. 

In this tutorial I'll show you the Silhouette Studio steps. If you'd prefer to design in xTool Creative Space, or want to create laser cut lines for pre-printed materials, check out this video. 

Open Silhouette Studio and either drag and drop the file into the work area or go to File > Merge. Navigate to your SVG file (a .Studio file or PNG will also work) to open the SVG. You will need at least Designer Edition to open an SVG file. 

This adorable champaign glass file I'm using is from So Fontsy's Big Celebrations Bundle. I think they will look adorable cut on glitter gold acrylic!  

The design I'm cutting is just a single line file meaning it only has one continuous cut line around the outside, but it comes as part of a mini set within the limited time bundle. 

Once in Studio, size the SVG file down so it's the size you want the earring to be.  You can do this by selecting the image and then pulling one of the corners in. This will ensure the SVG design scales proportionally. 

You'll probably now want to zoom in to make it easier to see. 

Open the FlexiShapes from the left sidebar and select the one that looks like a donut. 

Place the outer circle ONLY so it's overlapping the original SVG design.  If you need to make the hole itself bigger you can use the slider adjustment on the circle shape. 

Now select the entire donut shape and the original SVG file > right click > Weld. 

That's it! You've turned the SVG design into a laser cut earring design!  

You can make a duplicate here or you can export by going to File > Save As > Save to Hard Drive > File Type: SVG and the make a duplicate copy once you've imported the file into xTool Creative Space to make laser cut earrings.  

You can use this same technique to make holes for not just earrings but also ornaments and keychains as well. 

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