If you love arts and crafts hobbies then you need a 3D printer

Do you love making things and getting your hands dirty? Whether you're into arts, crafts, or both, a 3D printer could be a good investment. You don't need model design skills to benefit either, since there's a whole world of models out there just waiting to be discovered.

You can even try some new crafts for nothing but the cost of some filament.

Print models to make your existing hobbies even better

Scale your hobbies as your interest grows

I had a bit of a lightbulb moment last week when I realized how many 3D models are available for those who enjoy working with clay, whether that's sculpting, pottery, creating ornaments, or making jewelry.

A lot of this equipment can be expensive to buy and hard to justify, especially if you're a hobbyist who doesn't have a lot of free time. Investing in raw materials like clay is one thing, but all of the extras really add up. If clay if your thing, you can print everything from rolling guides and sculpting tools to pottery gauges and trimming tools for pottery wheels.

There are textured rollers with all manner of patterns on them, stamps of all different designs, guides for molding boxes and cones, templates for shaping bowls and planters, press molds—the list is almost endless.

Woodworking is another pastime that can greatly benefit from a 3D printer, and I'm not just talking about the vast range of 3D-printed improvements for your tools . You can make your own jigs, clamps for perfect corners , center markers , drill guides , sanding blocks , and much more. You can generate shims , dowels , radius jigs , and others things as you need them.

Painting is another such hobby. You can make infinite palettes of all sizes and style, palette knives and spatulas , mixing vessels, brush washing stations and holders, airbrush spray booths , pyramid standoffs for lifting items off the bench, and more.

If you're wondering if you could benefit from 3D-printed items, take a look at model repositories like MakerWorld , Printables , and Thingiverse , all of which carry mostly free models that you can download and print. There's a very good chance that someone with a 3D printer has already come up with some useful models for whatever it is you're into. There are also websites like Cults3D which feature paid models.

Try out completely new hobbies for virtually nothing

Try before you buy

Owning a 3D printer also means you can make things to try new and interesting arts or crafts simply by sending a model to the printer and coming back later. This lowers your price of entry to the price of the filament and any raw materials (like ink or fabric) that you may need.

Some of these crafts are more involved than others. Screen printing, block printing, and creating linocuts are hobbies with a fairly high cost attached since you need to buy a press. The arrival of the 3D-printed printing press cuts this cost dramatically, with models like the Open Press (which requires some non-printed parts) and the Dusty Press (which is an all-3D-printed affair, though it additional finishing is required) available.

3D-printed looms give you an opportunity to make your own bracelets, coasters, and other woven items. Some of these, like the tablet loom , require additional wooden rods. Others, like the coaster loom and smaller adjustable bracelet loom , are completely 3D printed.

One MakerWorld user has (at the time of writing) uploaded almost 80 polymer clay earring molds (among others), which you can use to shape earrings before baking in an oven at home and then finishing by hand. The durable 3D-printed flower press is perfect for drying out flowers that can then be arranged and framed.

Making your own soap is surprisingly easy from a raw ingredient standpoint, and with a 3D printer you can get access to a massive supply of molds, presses, cutters , and other tools to help you. The same is true of candlemaking, with useful wick holders and countless casting molds available to download and try.

You can even create a candle mold of 3D printing's unofficial mascot , Benchy .

Finishing 3D-printed models is a craft of its own

From cosplay to miniatures

Last but certainly not least, finishing 3D-printed models can also be fun for those who enjoy turning boring plastic into something more decorative. Post-processing usually involves some combination of sanding and painting, though more radical finishing techniques like vapor smoothing can also be employed .

If you're a big fan of scale models, tabletop miniatures, cosplay, or have a particular movie, TV, or video game fandom that you enjoy, you should know that printing a model is just the start.

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While no design skills are necessary to jump in, learning how to model will give you even more scope to stamp your own mark. This could be unique patterns on a clay roller, new molds for your soap and candle making, or something entirely unique for a hobby that you're interested in that's sorely underrepresented at the moment.