How awesome is this?!?

Since it's the summer and my son is at home with me, I decided to try to find a couple things for us to do. I took my son to the library to get his first library card. While I was there I noticed a room called Innovation Studio so I wanted to see what it was. I soon realized they had a 3d printer that was free to the public. If you make cookies, then you know what my first thought was.... COOKIE CUTTERS!!! The problem was I had no clue where to even start to try to make one. After doing some research, I stumbled across a site called Cookie Caster. This site is AWESOME!! It actually makes the cutter file for you!! Since I have a 40th birthday platter coming up next week, I decided to make a 40 cutter. I found an image I liked online and opened it in Photoshop. I am sure this can be done in other photo programs as well,  but I am only familiar with Photoshop. I found the easiest thing to do was to "black out" the image. Here is the original image I wanted to use:

It does have that little crown coming off the side, so I had to fix that but if you know your way around Photoshop, its no problem. Here is what it looked like after I blacked it out:

This is the image you want to bring into Cookie Caster. All you have to do after you import it is click the magic trace tool and then click on the black area. It will automatically trace the image and you will be able to preview what the cutter will look like! If it looks okay, click download 3d file. This is the file the library needs in order to make the cutter. 

To make things even better, my library offers to make your item for you so you can just send them the file and they will contact you when they have finished it. They had gotten a grant to purchase the printer and the supplies, but the supplies just ran out so they are now charging $1 per item. I will gladly pay $1 to save myself from hand cutting any day! 

Here is a picture of the finished cutter:

and here is a picture of a cookie made with the cutter. Please forgive the messiness of the cookie. I iced it real fast because I was heading out the door. 

Needless to say, the library now has about 15 cutter files to print for me. I am addicted! :) 

So if you need a quick cutter, check with your local library to see if they offer this service. My friend also informed me about this site so if your library doesn't offer this service, you might be able to find someone close to you that does.