In this exercise you work with silhouettes and you make a pendant. If you cut it out with the laser cutter, you can choose between different materials: cardboard or wood. If you make the pendant small, you can also make a piece of jewelry out of it. Actually it can work really well with a plotter too.
This exercise was written for a school and you are free to download it and use it again. It is available under the license CC-BY-NC.

Enough with the chatting, let’s get to work!

Exercise: A Quick and Simple Design For The Lasercutter

>>>> Dowload right click Save link as to download Pendant.svg:
https://www.inkscapefriends.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/Pendant.svg

1 Open the file Pendant.svg . If you zoom out, you should see something like this.

2 Turn off snapping using the button at the top right of the screen, if it is active.

3 Save the file with a new name via Menu > File > Save As… Svg is the correct format.

4 Zoom out and choose pictures to make your design. Drag them into a circle. Feel free to make multiple designs.

5 Rotate and resize images. Click the lock in the Tool Details.
This will keep the proportions the same while resizing when you pull the corners.

6 Letters are shapes too . Put some in your design too. Need more? Select one, copy and paste.

*Two examples for a pendant. You can easily cut this with a lasercutter or plotter.*

7 There are also some hooks that you can put on your hanger, if you need to.

8 Make sure all the pictures overlap each other a little.

9. When your design is ready, select all the paths by dragging around them.

10 Then choose Menu > Paths > Union .

11 Give the design line color black and fill color No Color , the cross on the left in the palette bar.

12 Remove any images that don’t belong to your design!

13 Save the file.

More explanation and challenges to go with this exercise

Does a path have too many details? That won’t look good with laser cutting.
Select it and simplify with Ctrl+L
Make path thicker, widen Ctrl+)
Narrow path, narrow Ctrl+(

14 Imagine that there is a piece sticking out of the circle and you don’t want that in your design.
Then click on the Shape Builder tool . This tool is not explained in our textbook, because it is a very new tool.

First select all paths you want to merge. Then click on the Shape Builder tool.
Drag over everything you want to merge. If you make a mistake, do Ctrl+Z (=undo).
When you are happy with the result, click Finish .
Note that there are no more black lines visible in the blue part. Black lines mean that the shapes are not connected.

15 Or… draw your own shapes with the pen tool and edit them with the edit nodes tool.

16 You can also make your design without a circle around it. Then you are completely free in the design.

This exercise was written for a school and you are free to download it and use it again.
It is available under the license CC-BY-NC: K. Roth-Koch – Inkscape for Artists.