DIY personalised laser engraved gift ideas

If you're desperate for Christmas gift ideas, this one's for you. I set myself the challenge of making all my Christmas presents with the xTool D1 Pro 20W laser cutter and engraver, turning cheap off-the-shelf items into personalised laser engraved gifts, and doing it without relying on any creativity of my own.

The laser: xTool D1 Pro 20W

xTool sent me the D1 Pro, along with the RA2 Pro rotary attachment for round objects, air assist and risers, just as I was about to buy one myself. It engraves wood, metal and even glass. In my tests, text stayed legible down to about 4–5 point on metal and a little larger on wood.

Idea 1: personalise anything with free fonts

The first shortcut is fonts. DaFont has thousands of free-for-personal-use fonts grouped by theme, including Christmas, Valentine's and handwritten scripts, and some decorative fonts include flourishes you can type as single characters. I combined a script font with a heart flourish in xTool Creative Space and engraved it on a £4.50 rolling pin on the rotary bed. Similar personalised rolling pins sell for nearly £30 online.

The same approach worked on a £3 gardening set (using the chuck attachment and its extension posts to grip the odd-shaped handles), a £6 serving tray that would cost £45 personalised, trinket boxes with laser-cut letters stuck on and painted, and a £2.29 ruler for myself.

Idea 2: engrave artwork, even on glass

The second shortcut is artwork. The laser can engrave photos and import SVG files, and Etsy sells SVGs for almost anything. For a friend who loves mountains I bought a £1.54 mountain SVG bundle and engraved it onto a £1.50 glass. With a diode laser, glass needs a coating first so the beam doesn't pass straight through; silver spray paint worked best, and it scrubs off afterwards with a scouring pad. I did Christmas-themed stemless wine glasses the same way.

Idea 3: gift boxes and chopping boards

Etsy also sells cut files for things you build yourself. A £3.28 box file, with my own text and graphics added, became a perfect-fit gift box for the glasses, and I tried some flexible living-hinge patterns too. Finally I recreated a personalised Father Christmas chopping board that sells for £20, starting from a £2.75 blank and making it double-sided so it gets used more than one day a year.

The takeaway: with a laser engraver, free fonts and a few pounds of digital files, you can make a whole stack of personalised gifts for a fraction of shop prices. Once you've got the hang of it, try something bigger, like this laser inlay chopping board.