3D Printed Christmas Ornament

Use TinkerCAD to 3D print festive Christmas ornaments!

1. Autodesk TinkerCAD website (and free Autodesk education account if you're a student!)
2. Multi material 3D printer such as a Bambu or Prusa XL OR Traditional FDM printer like a Prusa Mini (limited to a single filament color for ornament)
3. Filament (PLA was used) in a variety of Christmas colors, such as red, green, white, and blue
4. Ribbon or string to use for hanging ornament

Open TinkerCAD and create a new design template. Change the units to inches. Place a solid sphere on the build plate that has a diameter of 3 inches.

For text: Create a face on the sphere and place text onto the sphere. It should go through/sit into the sphere. Write your desired text, keep it shorter (5 or 6 characters) so it does not wrap around the entire sphere. Center the text. Now, greatly extrude your text off the sphere.

For object: Create a face on the sphere and place desired object onto the sphere. It should go through/sit into the sphere. Keep it smaller so it does not cover the entire front face of the sphere. Center the object. Now, greatly extrude your text off the sphere.

Duplicate your sphere twice (not including the text/object) and make each sphere roughly 1 inch larger than the last. You should now have a 3 inch (original sphere), a 3.25 inch, and a 3.5 inch sphere. Make the 3.25 inch sphere a hole. Center the 3.25 inch and 3.5 inch sphere with each other (in x, y, and z directions). Now, group the two spheres. Once the spheres are grouped, select the grouped object to make the 3.5 inch sphere a hole also. Keep in mind that in the next step, the outer 3.5 inch sphere size may need to be adjusted (made larger) to be able to remove all the remaining text/object that is extruded.

Now, you should have the original sphere, the actual ornament, and the two grouped hole spheres, that will create the wrapped text/object. Center the original sphere and the grouped hole spheres (in x, y, and z directions) by grouping the original sphere and text/object temporarily while centered. Once centered, you can hide the grouped hole spheres using the lightbulb icon, and ungroup the original sphere and the text/objective. If you want to recenter just the text/object, only select it and the original sphere, and align it in the x direction. Additionally, if needed, readjust the size of the outer hole sphere to adequately remove the remaining extruded text/object as done in the image above. To get your final wrapped text effect, select the entire object (the original sphere, text/object, and grouped hole spheres) and group them.

Finally, you are going to create the hook and cap at the top of the ornament so you can hang your ornament. Place a face on the top of your ornament and place a small cylinder at the top. Sink the cylinder into the ornament slightly, center it, and adjust it to the desired size. Lastly, add the torus (circle with hole and rounded edges) to the top of the cylinder. Only allow half of the torus to show so it acts as a hook to attach a piece of string to. Center the torus and adjust it to the desired size, then group the hook and cap with the sphere. You now have a Christmas ornament!

Name your TinkerCAD file and export it as an .stl file. Upload the .stl file to the appropriate CAM software for the 3D printer you are using. Remember to select your desired filament colors for the optimal Christmas effect. Now, 3D print your Christmas ornament!

Here is the final 3D printed Christmas ornament!