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How to make a 3D layered bathymetry lake map as a coaster

A list of NCAA College Football stadium locations, with a visual guide.

A cheap DIY gift idea for someone who loves college football.

UPDATE 11/19/2021: Already have a map, and just need the logo pins? I have a digital download of the logo sheet available at Etsy. Simply print it out on your home computer, and attach it to .375" thumb tacks or pins. For Christmas, I had the idea to make a map with pins of all the college logos from NCAA football. With those pins, a person can mark every stadium that they've been to, and aspire to go to even more, including bowl games. It was received well on Twitter! There

A mini 3D map of Lordran from the videogame Dark Souls

Made for a client, this was going to be a Christmas present that they would give to their relatives. This glass lake map was different from my previous lakes because of its size. It was sized at 11x14 instead of 8x10, and because transparency paper only exists smaller than 8.5"x11", I needed a different way to print on this. Luckily my local print shop had wood paper that they could print directly onto, and the effect was really cool when completed.

Finally got around to making Crater Lake, and while my goal was to use a cricut machine, it soon became quite a headache. Let me explain... My friend gave me their Cricut Mini, saying they got it as a gift and probably would never use it. I was thrilled, and took it back home, excited to start using it on these lake maps. Here's the thing...the Cricut Mini can't import .SVGs. This means I couldn't use my own designs, but only the set designs provided in the "Cricut-Craft Room

While I've had a lot of fun making the laser cut wooden maps, I wanted to find a way to make these maps that was quicker and easier to make. Cheaper too! Like my previous post where I made the Columbia River, I used an Xacto knife to cut layers of paper, and added a layer of glass between each layer. The text is printed on transparency paper, and when they're all put together it gives the same appearance of the laser cut maps, without having to find a laser cutter. They're he

For a Christmas present, I wanted to make one of my laser cut depth maps, but I had run out of time to use any that I had access to. Instead, I used an Xacto knife to cut layers of paper, and added a layer of glass between each layer. The text is printed on transparency paper, and when they're all put together it gives the same appearance of the laser cut maps, without having to find a laser cutter. They're held together with shower caulk (weird, I know, but I worried about o

I received a custom order to create two new maps and a heart for a wedding gift. The buyer would then mount them on a piece of plywood so they would be displayed together. This was a great opportunity to create new maps and streamline my process, and also determine a timeline for how long it would take to create a map from scratch. I also found a clever way to hide the heart pieces inside the layers of Lake Tahoe to get more bang for my buck. Some hiccups came when I tried go

I've been curious if I could sell these laser cut bathymetry maps on Etsy, so to test I wanted to start with Crater Lake. This time I wanted to use a thinner wood than what was used for my Newberry Crater chart, but little did I know it would be a much denser wood as well. It was extremely hard to pop out all the pieces without damaging the edges. Before painting or printing, I think it looks like a little T-Rex head about to bite Wizard Island: The final result after paintin

I found some cool laser cut maps on Pinterest, but for $200 I wouldn't be buying any anytime soon. Instead, I decided to put my Adobe Illustrator skills to work and decided to make my own. Thanks to the Engineering building on campus, I had access to a laser cutter for an affordable price, about $45 after paying for the wood and the labor. I started with creating the outlines of every layer, and the whole document looked like this: I had a lot of trouble getting the program t