Make an Easter card with hemp paper - Mr Beam Tutorial

Make a birthday card, send a card for Christmas, or make and give away an Easter card? The possibilities are manifold. You can send an Easter card to give family members, friends or even colleagues a little joy and to show them that you are thinking of them. And with your own personal touch, because you make them yourself.

 

Hemp paper in Mr Beam for a DIY Easter card

I recently discovered hemp paper for myself. So of course I had to test it in Mr Beam. Do you know hemp paper?

Comparison: hemp paper to conventional paper

There are many advantages of hemp paper compared to traditional wood or cellulose papers:

1. Environmental friendliness: Hemp paper is made from hemp fibre, which is quick and easy to grow and doesn't require the use of pesticides or fertilizers. In contrast, traditional paper is made from wood, which often leads to deforestation and associated environmental problems. In addition, the production of hemp paper requires less water and energy compared to paper made from wood.
2. Durability: Hemp fibres are very strong and resilient, resulting in a durable and long-lasting paper.
3. Quality: Hemp fibres produce a high quality paper that is very fine and consistent. It has a soft texture and a comfortable touch.
4. Water resistance: Compared to cellulose paper, hemp paper is water-resistant and resists moisture better.
5. Recallability: Hemp paper is fully recyclable and can be used multiple times.
6. Cost Effectiveness: Because hemp is easy to grow and harvest, hemp paper can be more cost-effective than wood paper.

Advantages of hemp paper when lasering in Mr Beam

Hemp fibres are 4–5 times longer than wood fibres, which makes hemp paper very robust. And that's exactly what you notice when lasering with the Mr Beam:

• The hemp paper is very forgiving when engraving.
• Engravings can be very intense and yet the hemp paper there is not perforated and is still stable.
• Cutting is still effortless.
• There was not as much smoke as with the lasered kraft paper, and there were hardly any traces of smoke when engraving.

The hemp paper is available in different thicknesses and dimensions.

For an engraving, however, I always recommend heavier paper, including hemp paper.

Make an Easter card in natural tones

The Easter card consists of several layers, which makes it very stable in the end. This is helpful if you want to send them. For sending, you should note the dimensions of a normal envelope. The size of a postcard, i.e. DIN A6, is 10.5 by 14.8 cm and fits perfectly into a C6 envelope. In your graphics program, e.g. Adobe Illustrator, first create a rectangle with rounded corners measuring 10.5 by 14.8 cm. You laser this rectangle out of kraft paper, it will be the basis of your crafted Easter card.

From your first rectangle, you now make an inner offset for the lighter layer of hemp paper. The hemp paper gets an engraving - I chose a rabbit as a motif for Easter. He looks through a wreath of leaves that forms the next layer. You laser the wreath for the Easter card out of thin birch plywood so that the card doesn't become too heavy and thick. I bought the files for the rabbit and the wreath on the Internet.

On your crafted Easter card, there is still space above the bunny and the wreath for a personal greeting or some decoration.

Off to BeamOS with your DIY Easter card

Since each paper requires different settings for lasering due to its different properties such as weight and colour, you should always carry out small cutting and engraving tests first. It is always important to stay with the laser, especially with paper!

To get a feel for the right laser parameters for the hemp paper in 320g/m2, I used the settings for cardboard as a guide. Finnboard has a very high density, which makes it both stable and tear-resistant, and thus has properties similar to hemp paper. The data are based on the Mr Beam II dreamcut [S].

Comparison of laser parameters

Engraving	Finboard	Hemp paper
Intensity	80%	70%
Speed	1700 mm/min	1600 mm/min
Runs	1	1
Line spacing	0.1	0.1
Cut
Intensity	100%	100%
Speed	650 mm/min	550 mm/min
Runs	2	1

 

With the thin birch plywood for the wreath of the Easter card, I adjusted the settings already stored in BeamOS to the thickness. Here three passes for the 3 mm birch plywood are specified. For the 1mm thick birch plywood I reduced the passes from three to one and the Mr Beam cut it perfectly.

Crafting and final decoration of your DIY Easter card

You glue the hemp paper with an adhesive of your choice, whether glue stick or liquid glue, centred on your kraft paper.

To attach the leaf wreath made of birch plywood, and many other materials, I recommend the Tombow Mono Liquid Glue. With its fine tip, you can even apply the glue with pinpoint accuracy, which I found very helpful with the wreath for the Easter card.

I mainly used the leaves of the wreath to apply glue. You stick it on the hemp paper so that your rabbit can see through it.

Feather headdress and embossing ribbon for your crafted Easter card

In the upper part of your Easter card there is still enough space for, for example, a nice lettering - or if you, like me, can't write letters, take a lettering device with a golden ribbon and emboss a nice "Happy Easter" or other Easter greetings your crafted Easter card.

Are you currently also frequently discovering guinea fowl feathers in the DIY area? - almost a small DIY handicraft trend. They have high season, especially at Easter. On the very calm, natural colours of my Easter card, the tips of the guinea fowl feathers are a real little highlight and emphasize the embossed labels with the Easter greeting. Fix the two springs with a small drop of glue. Then stick the “Easter” over it with a little overlap.

Your DIY Easter card is now complete. For a few personal lines on the back of the kraft paper, you can use an opaque white gel pen or stick on a small piece of paper to write on.

I wish you a lot of fun recreating the Easter idea - and especially discovering the possibilities of hemp paper with the Mr Beam.

Happy Easter!

Your Rina