The Glow: paper lanterns cut with Cricut, with my business card hidden underneath

Business cards get lost. After an event, most of them end up in a drawer or a bin, and the person behind them fades with the card. I wanted people to keep something, and to find me again on the day they think of me.

The Glow designs paper lanterns for my Cricut. I give it my own illustrations, and it builds the whole box: the walls in a row, the glue tab, the flaps and every fold line. The dark parts of each illustration become openings, so when a small LED tea light glows inside, the picture shines through the paper. My business card prints on the underside of the base: the lantern travels home, and my contact travels with it.

Paper cutting has its own physics, and the tool takes care of it. It adds tiny bridges so every island of paper stays attached, wraps a single illustration around several walls like a panorama, and reports the thinnest strip of paper and the thinnest ray of light before anything gets cut. Three views show the flat net, the assembled lantern and the card underneath.

From one screen to a finished object:

• One SVG file: black lines to cut, blue lines to score, ready for Cricut Design Space.
• Print Then Cut for the business card under the base.
• Marketing pieces made of card, ready to give away at events.
• Test cards for LOLO Read, my screen-free reading toy.

Why The Glow? First for the light itself, shining through the paper. Then for the glow that stays: the warm memory of a gift, and a name that comes back when it matters.

Built with HTML, JavaScript and Claude Code, for a Cricut cutting machine. The illustrations are prompted by me in ChatGPT.

A card gets filed away. A lantern gets a place on the shelf.

Ready on my computer for my next lanterns and test cards.