How to Make a Cute Acrylic Plant Pal With a Laser Cutter

I’m having so much fun crafting with my xTool P2 laser cutter! Today I made another acrylic craft. I’m a total plant lover and have close to 50 house plants. To jazz up one of my plants, I designed a cute little worm and cut it with the P2. I’m sharing the detailed process along with the cut files so that you can make your own little plant pal.

I’ve been trying to learn Adobe Illustrator and it’s been challenging to say the least. For those of you that have it mastered, I envy you. I was pleased with this simple worm design for my first project though. I wanted to try this design out on the xTool P2 to test how intricate of cuts it can make. Spoiler alert, it can cut crazy tiny pieces with perfect precision. I was impressed!

Before we get started, note is that this tutorial uses acrylic. Make sure that your Laser cutting machine can cut acrylic sheets. A CO2 laser cutter like the xTool P2 can handle acrylic with no problem but if you have a different laser cutter you may need to modify and use a different material.

This post contains affiliate links, meaning, at no additional cost to you, I will make a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Materials

• Acrylic sheet
• Super glue
• Sharpie

Note that I cut the three layers using different colored acrylic. For the bottom base layer I used 1/8″ pastel watermelon pink from Houston Acrylic. You can use code handmadeweekly10 for 10% off at Houston acrylic!

The outline portion was cut with 1/8″ red clear iridescent from xTool. The eyes and mouth were cut with 1/8″ white acrylic from xTool. I ended up coloring the mouth black with a sharpie.

Tools

• Laser Cutter
• Weeding tool & tweezers

This is a great beginner project since it doesn’t require any accessories. All you’ll need is a laser cutter that can process acrylic sheet. I have the honeycomb for the P2 but I haven’t installed it yet. Even though the cuts in this project were tiny, it was totally fine with just the slats.

How to Download the Design

Before you get to cutting you’ll need to download the design. This design uses three layers. One will cut the outline of the worm and the stakes that go into the soil. The next layer will cut the outline. The last layer cuts the mouth and the eyes.

To access the design, enter your name and email address in the form below and you’ll get an email with the files. You can then upload these files into your software to cut out the cute little worm.

Laser Cut Acrylic Plant Pal: Step by Step Tutorial

Step 1 – Upload the design into software program

I work with an xTool P2 so I use their free software which is called creative space. There is an update but I have yet to install it so what you’re looking at is a slightly older version of the software.

Upload the files and make sure that you set them as three separate layers.

The base layer is shown as layer 6 above and will cut the worm shape and the stakes that go into the soil.

There are two other layers. Layer 2 shown above cuts the outline of the worm and the lines. You’ll be so impressed with how intricate of a cut this is if you’re using a P2. I can’t speak to how other lasers can handle this type of cut. The last layer (layer 5) is the eyes and the mouth. I cut these out of white acrylic and then used sharpie to color the mouth. I would have cut that out of black acrylic if I had some.

Below is an example of what the little worm will look like once the layers are stacked (glued).

Step 2 – Set your Material Settings

• Material: 3mm white acrylic
• Thickness: 0.118 in
• Processing Path: by layer

Step 3 – Set your Layer Settings

All 3 layers

• Processing type: Cut
• Power: 50
• Speed: 15 mm/s
• Pass: 1
• Tab generation: Off

Step 4 – Process

Follow the manufacturers instructions to cut the layers.

Look at how precise and intricate the piece is that I’m holding. I’m honestly so impressed with this machine!

Here are the 3 separate layers cut. The base piece was cut with pastel watermelon colored acrylic. The outline is a red clear iridescent and the eyes and mouth are both white. I colored the mouth black with a sharpie.

I also added a penny to this picture for scale. Take a minute to appreciate how tiny those pieces are!

Step 5 – Glue the top pieces to the base

Now that all of the pieces are cut you’ll just need to glue them together. I used super glue for this. My trick is to pour some super glue on a sheet of paper and then dab the back of the acrylic into the glue. Blot it off on the paper and then attach it to the base. This will prevent the glue from oozing out and covering the piece.

These pieces are tiny so you’ll need some tweezers and likely a weeding tool to help set them in place. If not, you’ll be gluing them to your hands!

Make sure that you give the glue enough time to dry before you move the worm.

That’s it! Now you have a super cute little worm plant pal. I named my Walter but you can name yours whatever you want if you’re weird like me. ;)

Step 6 – Add the worm to your plant

Here is Walter in a 4.5″ diameter pot.

And here is a side view. Since I used a transparent acrylic for the darker pink top piece you get some light shining through. I think it turned out pretty cool. I wish I had some black acrylic for the mouth and the center of the eyes. He’s still cute though.

He looks cute peeking out of a larger 9″ diameter pot too.

Here is another ~9″ pot with the soil a bit higher so you can see more of him.

And last example is in a smaller pot at the front of my house where there was a ton of light coming in. I love how the layered acrylic adds shadows and how the light shines through the clear acrylic portion.

This little acrylic plant pal worm is so stinking cute. If you’re not a plant person, this little guy would make a great gift for the plant lover in your life.

This is now my 3rd Acrylic project with the xTool P2 and my 4th project overall. I am so happy to have this machine and bring my ideas to life. If you’re looking for more laser cutting tutorials, I’ll be building out a category on Handmade Weekly but for now, here are the other three that I’ve completed.