Door hanger blanks from Michaels are conveniently precut, but they're rough and definitely need some sanding. Use a medium-to-fine grit paper like 220 to smooth it out and remove any roughness on the edges. Don't forget to sand inside the cutout, too. You don't want your guests getting spliters!

For our door hangers, I created a design for the front and a few different designs for the back. You can use the template in the XCS file as a starting point to design yours. For the fronts, I just had a simple welcome message with the name of our property. For the backs, I created different versions for each guest. Guests with dogs received hangers featuring the dogs' names, and guests without got various, differently themed “do not disturb” messages with their own names. Be creative or reuse a design that just swaps in your guests' names.

As always, I framed the material for reference in the design file and to assist with framing on the laser bed.

To make positioning easy, I recommend creating a jig to position each hanger in exactly the same position. I just used some scrap cardboard from a shipping box. The first tab in my design file will cut this jig for you from a similarly-sized piece of cardboard.

Position your jig material on the laser bed and push it as far as it can go to the top left corner. Frame to verify that the cuts will extend to the edge of your material and process.

If you're using Michael's door hangers, you can use the engraving settings in my XCS file. Otherwise, run some tests on your material to determine the optimal engraving effect.

If you're using an M1, you can use my design for the jig, and everything will line up just fine. If not, assume the usual trial and error. Frame and adjust accordingly.

Ready to engrave?

Select the Front tab first. Frame and process your job. I used air assist on low, but I still found it necessary to gently sand the surface after engraving.

Then select the tab for the design you want to use on the back and customize the design with names as you'd like. Frame, process, and sand.

These door hang tags will look pretty cool on their own, but adding a little stain just finishes them off perfectly. This was actually the first engraving project I finished by staining. I chose a light Minwax stain, Ipswitch Pine. Wipe it on with a rag, cheesecloth, or a staining sponge.

Now impress your guests! It took our guests a night or two to figure out they had custom “do not disturb” messages designed just for them.