simpleshapes

ABOUT OUR MATERIALS

Our large collection of materials

  • We have a huge collection of over 340 materials in stock and ready to use and you’ll find them all listed on our materials page. This page shows you all the materials and provides a handy “FILTERS” bar with a range of options to narrow down your search for the perfect material. 

    Once you click through to a specific material you’ll find every material shows a 10cm photo swatch of its top surface as well as photos of finished pieces cut from that material. These pages also include useful descriptions of the material’s attributes such as thickness, opacity, surface finish etc along with any intricacies you need to be aware of. 

    From both the materials page and the individual pages you can quickly and easily save materials to your favourites list to keep track of the ones you love the best.

Materials filters bar

  • On the left hand side of the materials page we show a “filters” bar. This allows you to configure lots of options so you can narrow your search down to the material you need. Access the filters bar by clicking on “FILTERS” just under the main navigation on the material grid page. 

    View by Colour
    View materials by one or more colour choices, you can select colours from the swatches listed in the filters bar to see all of the “red” materials or the “multi colour” materials. This can help to narrow down your search for the perfect RED. Plus it looks super pretty! You can also click multiple colours, eg show both greens and blues at once.

    View by Category
    All of our materials are categorised by their kind. They are grouped together with materials that are of the same type ie. “fiesta glitter” is a group of multi colour glitter acrylics. 

    View by Finish
    You can choose to view material by their surface finish eg “Matt both sides” or “different both sides”. These details also appear on the individual material pages.

    View by Thickness
    Most of our materials are 3mm thick, but some are 4mm or thicker, if you only want to see materials that are a specific thickness you can choose that option at the bottom of the filters bar.

    You can mix and match all of these search elements to find the exact material you need! View all red materials that are gloss both sides etc. 

Individual Material Pages

  • Material Photos
    On these pages you will see a 10cm photo (some swatches are computer generated) of the material, as well as photos of the material, laser cut into different shapes, these photos should give you a better idea of how the material responds to laser cutting.

    Material Description
    Each material has its own detailed material page, this page tells you all about the material and the intricacies involved with using that material. All materials respond differently to laser cutting and we have done our best to explain all of these details on their individual material pages. The page can be accessed by clicking on the swatches on the materials grid page. We have provided information needed for thickness variations, opacity and surface finish. 

    Thickness, Transparency and Finish
    A    re shown underneath the description, this gives you an indication of if the material is see through, or if it is the same on the front and back side of the material. If it’s matt or gloss etc.

    View by Material
    Another fun thing to try on the material pages is the “view by material” button, this will take you back to the shapes grid page and show you all of the shapes using this material - try it out!

    Other Materials
    At the bottom of the page, there is a section showing other materials in the same category so that you can see other colourways available for that kind of material.

material favourites

  • When scrolling through the material grid page you can quickly and easily click on the hearts in the top right of each swatch to add them to your favourites list. They will be saved into your favourites list with the main swatch as a preview. You can quickly get back to your favourites using the heart icon at the top left of the site, material favourites can also be accessed from the materail picker by clicking on the heart icon.

Material thickness

  • Some materials are more handmade than others and can be thicker in sections and thinner in other parts, this will mean that when you receive your shapes some may be thicker than others, the materials with varying thickness have been explained on their individual materials pages. This mostly refers to the chunky and premium glitter materials but is also valid for some other materials as well. If exact thickness matters, have a read through these descriptions before ordering.

Material surface finish

  • Materials - different front / back 
    Some materials have differing front and back sides, for example, the front may be matt and the back gloss, or the colours may be more pronounced on the front than the back. Because of this, we have added the option to  “mirror as pairs”. In the box where you decide on quantity, you can choose to “mirror as pairs” which means that half of the shapes will face one way and half will face the other way, giving you pairs for earrings. You call also “mirror all shapes” which will flip ALL of your shapes so if you have a shape that is facing left and you want it to face right then you can use this to change the direction of the shape before ordering.

    Materials - same front / back
    Materials that are the same front and back are much simpler and there will be no need to order in pairs or flip any pieces. 

    You can view all materials by different surface options in the FILTERS bar on the material grid page.

Material variations

  • Most of the materials we use are handmade or small batch acrylics and specialty decorative woods. As a result minor colour, thickness and finish variations and some surface imperfections can and do occur. Whilst we inspect every sheet for major defects, with hand made plastics it’s not unusual to find the occasional bubble or light scuff mark in the surface of the material, and these are considered a normal part of each material's unique properties. 

    While the images shown on this site are representative of the materials typical appearance, just as every piece of timber has a different grain, patterns, glitter density and colours can vary across every piece.

    Please read each materials page carefully to get an understanding of any specific material constraints and variations.

Protective paper

  • Each shape will be covered in protective paper, this is a very fine white or brown masking paper we apply to the material before cutting so that the laser does not burn the face of the material as it cuts through, sometimes the laser can flame up a little (especially on thicker materials) and this can cause “burn marks” on the material face, the protective paper is a way of ensuring that the flat face of the material is clean and smooth once the paper is removed.

Material Samples

  • We have sample chips available for purchase for all of our materials, shoot us an email should you like to see any of our materials in the flesh, most are sooo much prettier in real life! We can send you single samples or a full sample pack of a material category. 

    Please contact us if you need to see a sample.