In this post I show how to remove the background of an image in Canva and use Cookie Design Lab to design a custom umbrella cookie cutter.

Recently in one of the 3D printing groups on Facebook, someone was asking for help taking a picture with a background and turning it into an STL file to print a cookie cutter. She had an order for custom corporate logo cookies and needed to make a custom cutter to match the customer’s umbrella with a few raindrops falling on it. She posted a picture of the umbrella with the full background of the logo and was struggling to convert it into a custom cookie cutter to 3D print at home. I offered to make the cutter for her and made a video of the process using Canva and Cookie Design Lab.



First, I needed to clean up the image and remove the background, so I dropped it into Canva. I have a Pro account, which includes extra editing functions. The one click BG Remover did most of the heavy lifting, but there were a few lines left, I think from the business name. I went into Edit, and under Select Area, chose Brush. Using the Brush, I went over those stray lines and then clicked Delete. Now the image was perfect and ready to download. 


Then, I switched over to Cookie Design Lab and dropped the image in. Cookie Design Lab remembers the settings I used to make my last cookie cutter, and I had a high number of points, so the cutter design was perfect. You can see in the video how I can use the slider to lower or increase the number of points and how that changes the smoothness of the custom cookie cutter. This person also didn’t want an offset, but I show how you can add white space around your image if you’d like using the offset slider. 


With the cookie cutter design ready, I moved on to sizing. She requested a four inch high cookie cutter, so I changed the size and switched the drop down from width to height. I also added the cookie cutter name for her. Next, in handle sizing, I added my favorite features to give her a slightly larger and rounded handle. Finally, in blade sizing, the only item I ever change is the transition. The blade edge already tapers down, but sometimes I like to take the thickness down from the default 0.25. 


And that was it! I saved the cutter to my library, got the STL, and then sent it and the cleaned up image so she could make these custom logo cookies for her corporate client!


Want to see Cookie Design Lab in action? Check out our YouTube channel. https://www.youtube.com/@CookieDesignLab 

Considering joining Cookie Design Lab and have questions? Check out our FAQs or email us at [email protected].