A couple of months after our son's first birthday, he became obsessed with our water bottles! He would rather drink water from our water bottles than his own small colorful sippy cups. We figured it was just one of those toddler things, but a couple of months later that didn't change.
Around that time, we got our xTool F1 (not an ad- though we wish it were, ha!). We wanted to learn how to use it to support our small business. My husband had his own ideas for engraving metal and experimenting with the 3D functions, but I thought:
What if we gave our boy his very own water bottle that looked like ours?
One of his favorite book is Construction Site: Farming Strong, All Year Long, so we agreed that it had to be construction themed.
Discovering the YETI Jr
I headed to YETI website (again, not an ad, I just like my YETI over my husbands water bottle because it fits nearly everywhere), and realized they had a YETI Jr. I didn't even know they existed! Their Wetlands Brown color felt like a perfect match for the construction theme. We ordered two (because we know ourselves and knew we would probably mess one up) and got to work.
I originally thought we’d go with something simple, but my husband suggested a wrapped design. He gave it a shot in Canva, but artsy design isn’t really his thing. I took over, and I think it turned out cute, right?
Funny Mistake
When we exported the SVG from Canva and opened it in Inkscape, everything looked great. Then we imported the file to the xTool Creative Space, and still looked good...
Until we engraved it.
One of the machines ended up duplicated and flipped. My husband, being a doer, clicked "Print" without checking the preview on the Touchscreen Controller. Our son's bottle came out with a little glitch. Definitely not what we were going for, but hey, that’s how you learn!
The Learning Curve is Real
I feel like there isn’t much detailed guidance out there on how to engrave wraparound designs, especially since the circumference changes from top to bottom.
Most of our time wasn’t spent designing—it was spent:
- Watching half-explained YouTube videos
- Testing different placement and settings
- Aligning again and again
It took hours to get it right, and even then we had the glitch! Ha. But it was totally worth it!
The Toddler Pass/Fail Test
We showed our son his new bottle and he lit up! He pointed out the sun and the clouds and all the machines that looked like the ones in his book. He uses that bottle every day (though yes... he still prefer ours sometimes, probably because they’re ours 😅).
Why We Decided to Sell It
So, that's the story behind the water bottle and why it ended up in our store. We didn't design this to be trendy, we are pretty bad at staying on top of trends actually. We enjoy making things we need. Actually, every product you see on our store started as something we made as a gift or use!
If you’re a parent or a maker trying out something new—especially with a toddler running around—you know how much patience and persistence it takes to create something good.
We hope this inspires you to try new things, even if they don’t turn out perfectly the first time. Whether you're crafting for your family or building something for others—your favorite “customers” will always remind you why it’s worth it.
