I would have to look back to a class I took in high school to point to my first experience with glass etching. My instructor, Mr. Siska, introduced me and several other sophomores to the process in his art class. It was one of the projects that I remember well and has stuck with me despite the 23-year absence from the process. It seems fitting that my career now finds me back to glass etching again—a technique that has changed little since 1987.

As a promotional products retailer, I find joy in producing and sourcing a wide range of products, including some that are unconventional or unfamiliar to me.

I’ve said it many times regarding CorelDRAW, “I use 10% of the program 90% of the time.”

This is true because some tools are essential, especially when working with vector objects. I do not know what I would do without the Weld, Trim, and Intersect tools—tools that have been a part of CorelDRAW since its inception.

In this tutorial, I will demonstrate how I’ve used these tools in a couple of projects. But honestly, I use them in almost every design project I do. If you are not familiar with them, this article will change the way you work in CorelDRAW forever.

Producing industrial nameplates with incremented serial numbers is hardly the most creative project to work on, but many retailers do find it extremely profitable. That’s because the customers who require this type of engraving typically are interested first in quality and timely delivery and consider price a secondary or even tertiary concern. We know we can produce a quality product and we’re experts at managing our schedules, so this seems like a perfect fit.

Where’s the beef? It’s in this very beefy project that, among other things, will detail a process for creating table tents with call numbers on them like those used by many fast-food locations.

Large franchise operations order these by the millions at a super cheap price, but smaller, local establishments often require quantities that can be profitable for laser owners, UV printers, sublimators, and other smaller-run personalization professionals.

This article revolves around a project that I hope many readers with lasers will complete: a marshmallow launcher. However, the real hero of this article is CorelDRAW’s Object Manager. Laser owner or not, I hope every CorelDRAW user will download the Marshmallow Launcher.cdr file, available on the Awards and Personalization Association website at www.AwardsPersonalization.org/InsightsMagazine/Resources.aspx, and refer to it while reading the article. And for those of you who plan to complete the project, we’ve also included a brief step-by-step guide showing how to assemble and use the marshmallow launcher in the digital edition of this article.

Someone recently contacted me to learn the process of converting artwork drawn on paper into something that could be cut from CorelDRAW. You may have an idea, but bear with me because what may seem like the quickest way to convert the artwork is actually the worst option in almost all cases. Let’s go through the steps in the process.

JDS Industries provides a CorelDRAW/Photo-Paint tutorial on how to fix poor-quality artwork for a personalized, laser-engraved product. See how a blurry, faded, handwritten recipe was altered in CorelDRAW and Photo-Paint before being lasered onto a bamboo cutting board to create a sentimental personalized gift.