find a picture that you want cut into some object

The picture should be line art, not made of shades of gray, and relatively simple in its design.

Save the picture to your hard drive

If the picture is online, save a copy of its link so you can come back to it.

If you need to modify the picture, you can do that in paint, gimp, photoshop or whatever you like.

convert the picture to a vector image

You can use several different programs to do this.

One program that works is Raster to Vector www.raster-vector.com

Save the vector in dxf format to your hard drive

This page should help you get started

http://snowball.pbwiki.com/StephenMc

http://www.europeafloat.com/images/germany_map_waterways.gif

http://z.about.com/d/geography/1/0/K/J/mexico.jpg