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I wanted an ornament that had pictures of my family for christmas. Here's how I did it.


Select Basswood 3mm material from the material options in XCS.

Select the Circle tool from the insert option on the left toolbar.

Hold down the shift key on your keyboard while drawing the circle on the drawing area. This ensures a perfect circle.

In XCS settings (upper left icon), select inches as unit.

With the circle selected, Adjust Width or Height (they should be the same) to the inches you want your base of the snowman to be (I'm using 5 inches).

Right click on the circle and choose copy.


Right click on the XCS background and paste the circle twice so you have 3 circles on the screen


Select one of the pasted circles and reduce by one inch. In my case that would be 4 inches.
Select the other pasted circle and reduce by two inches. In my case that would be 3 inches.

Align the circles so they are somewhat centered and overlap each other a little.

Select all three circles (hold down your mouse at the upper left of the top circle and drag to bottom right of bottom circle).
Select the align option on the top toolbar and choose Horizontal align center.

With the 3 circles selected, select the align option on the top toolbar and choose Distribute vertically. This ensures each circle has the same overlap as the next.

With the three circles selected, choose Combine from the top toolbar and Unite.

From the left toolbar, select Insert and choose rectangle.

Draw a rectangle covering the portion on the bottom of the snowman you want to remove to make the base.

Select both the snowman and the rectangle (if the rectangle is already selected you can hold down shift and click on the snowman to select it too).


Select combine from the upper toolbar and choose subtract. This will leave just the part of the rectangle where it touches the circle sides and remove everything below creating a line across the bottom.

I typically revert to millimeters at this point. You can refer to step 4 if you don't remember how to change the unit.
With the snowman selected, choose outline from the top toolbar and set your preference. I like to use 5mm.
Make sure to press the OK button.


With the outline selected, right click and choose a color. I'm using red and will refer to the outline as the red snowman and the original as the blue snowman.

Draw a rectangle around the red snowmans top circle. If you forget how to draw a rectangle you can refer to step 14.


For this step you will need to unlock the width and height constraints (first picture).
With the width and height contraints unlocked and the rectangle selected, adjust the left and right sides of the rectangle so they barely touch the outer side of the red snowmans upper circle (second picture).
Adjust the upper part of the rectangle to allow a little space above the red snowmans upper circle (second picture).

With the rectangle selected, move the bottom of the rectangle so it is between the upper circle of the red and blue snowmen.

Draw a circle somewhere on the canvas. If you forget how to draw a circle refer to step 2 and 3. Set the width or height to 10mm. If you forget how to set them, refer to step 5.

Create an outline of the circle set to 2mm. If you forget how to create an outline, see step 17.
Don't forget to press OK.

Select both the outline and the original circle. From the top toolbar choose group.

Move the grouped circles so the outer circle overlaps the rectangle top. The inner circle should not overlap the rectangle.

Select the grouped circles and the rectangle and on the upper toolbar select Align and Horizantal align center.

select just the grouped circles and choose ungroup from the top toolbar.


Select just the outer circle and shift and click on the rectangle to select it too (picture 1). From the top toolbar select Combine and Unite.

Now select the rectangle combined with the outer circle and use shift to select the red snowman. From the top toolbar select Combine and Unite.

Select the blue snowman and then use the shift key to select the red snowman too. Copy and paste the red and blue snowmen. If you forget how to copy and paste refer to steps 6 and 7.

With both the red and blue snowmen that were duplicated selected, from the top toolbar choose combine and Subtract at overlap.

Move this image to a new layer by right clicking and changing the color. I'm using black.

On the object settings panel on the right, set the processing type to Engrave.

Select the red snowman, the blue snowman and the red inner circle. From the top toolbar choose group.

Select the grouped snowmen and shift select the engraved snowmen. Choose align top then align left from the top toolbar.

Since we don't need to do anything else with the layer, we'll hide it until we process the file. Select the layer (mines black and called layer 3 in the layer window. Click the eye to the left of the layer. To undo this at anypoint just repeat the process.
If you move or resize the other two snowmen, be sure to unhide the layer and select it too.

Select the grouped snowmen (red, blue and red circle) and from the top toolbar select ungroup.

Click on Image in the left toolbar. Select an image to import. This will by default pick up the black layer. With the image selected, right click and change to another color. I'm using Orange. Change bitmap engrave settings if required. I'm using the default ones for 3mm basswood.

Position the image so it touches on the blue snowman. Make sure the image overlaps the blue line a little. This is what will hold the image to the frame of the snowman.

With the image selected, choose outline from the upper toolbar. Set the outline width to 0.
Don't forget to press OK.
The outline is now selected. Shift and select the blue snowman then choose Combine Subtract (image 2)

Repeat this steps 37 to 40 until all of your images have been added and outlines have been subtracted. Be sure each image outline is anchored to the snowman by overlapping the blue line.

Select the red layer and set the processing type to cut. I'm using the above settings. Repeat for the blue layer.
Unhide the black black layer. If you forget how to do this see step 36.

Thanks for sticking with me through this process.