It seems like a kind of tradition to do a 5 minute project for Christmas. Last year’s cheertree is back up in DoES Liverpool and has now been extended by MCQN to draw pictures on the front of FACT. And it’s also running the christmas tree lights in my house. This year it’s crackers, and inspired by cracker’s already being die-cut from flat sheet, and there being no designs ready for me to download and cut my own crackers, I’ve created one.

laser cut cracker It’s a cracker https://twitter.com/StrangeCaseC/status/544809159888478208/

While I’ve included laser scores along the length — to make it easier to roll across the grain of the craft card I used in testing — they can be removed to give a circular cross-section (although it does give a slightly low-poly, new æsthetic look). Because the crackers are still completely flat after cutting, they’re ideal for decorating for completely customised decorations. They could even be cut from pre-printed card; the world is your bivalve.

I’ll be cutting a number of these this year, and printing some low poly christmas trees from Faberdasher (and maybe a polar bear or two), and perhaps printing jokes in the style of badkidsjokes.tumblr.com to go inside them for the DoES Liverpool Christmas party this year. Cut files available at: thingiverse.com/thing:595649 Some assembly required, and some cracker snaps:

  1. Place a cracker snap along the length and stick down at each end. Depending on the length, this might need trimming to fit inside the cracker, but should lie flat.

  2. Roll the cracker and push the tabs through the respective slots.

  3. Tie one end with a ribbon.

  4. Fill with your cracker prizes (bad jokes, plastic tat and a paper hat are traditional).

  5. Tie the other end with a ribbon.

  6. Profit.