I hope your holiday sales are doing well! Don't forget about Course 12 in the Learning Center all about holiday ornaments in glass, wood & acrylic and adding color to them.
This month we are starting a new section called "free for you!" In this new section of our newsletter we will offer free image files for your use. A subscriber (John R.) suggested this give-away along with an idea for using it. Great idea John! Here I created a holiday card to send to friends and family. I actually brought some of my work samples home and showed them to my husband. I looked for them to bring them back to work for our photographer to shoot them and my husband had taken them to his work and started passing them out! I had to create new samples! At least my husband likes my work!
It is time for our quarterly survey about LaserU. A link for it will be emailed to you tomorrow (Wednesday, December 5). You will receive a link, in the email, to click on and will be asked 10 
questions that will take approximately 5 minutes of your time. The link in the email will take you to the host of our survey at SurveyMonkey.
Past surveys we have done have yielded The Project Center, printable versions of all of our lessons, more information on photo engraving, the Corel Center and much more. The surveys are very important to us. Most of our changes have been as a result of subscriber feedback. We look forward to your continued interest in helping us improve.
This month in our images (yes, 6 files) consist of patterns to use in CorelDRAW. These can be used in a variety of ways. My example is for invitations or announcements.
I created this holiday card to send out to friends and family. In this I combined the power of the computer (ink) printer with the power of the laser engraver. I ran my cardstock through the computer printer for the image and text. I then used the laser for the vector cutting. We also did this last year for the birth announcements for my son Cooper.
Click this link to see more finished product images and the links to the free files. Enjoy!
Laser Spotlight
Each month we showcase an item, product or skill from LaserU. We give a summary of the item and provide links for more information. This month we will look at the Project Center's handout on Masking Materials
We are often asked which type of mask to use with what type of product. Below are the three mask materials we use here along with a photo to show it in use. Masks are a great way to keep a substrate clean and safe from smoke residue. They are also a terrific way to lightly engrave (barely even marking the mask and not touching the substrate at all) to test-engrave for positioning. This enables you to not ruin the substrate.
Green Laser Tape:
The Green laser Tape is used often for color filling applications, but is also excellent for sandblasting.
Paper Mask Medium Tack:
The Medium Tack Paper Masks are most often used as cutting masks - protecting the surface of the item being vector cut (from smoke residue).
Polyester Flex & Rigid Masks:
The Polyester Flex and Rigid Masks are both used primarily for sandblasting applications.
For more information on Masking Materials see the Project Center Lesson under Novice titled Masking Materials.
Please send questions and comments to laseru@laserbits.com
See you next month with our next The Laser Engraver Newsletter.
Kathryn