There is nothing like Christmas time. It is a season to spend time with family, lots of great food and great Christmas music, gifts and decorating a beautiful Christmas tree. For most people, decorations also play an important role in setting up the Christmas spirit, and jazzing up the house is, for a lot of people, one of the greatest joys around this time of year.

But before you go looking around the closet for your old decorations and ornaments that you use every year, this time you might consider 3D printing your own! 3D printing is an original way to make your own Christmas decorations and letting your creativity take control!

All you need is a digital file of the object you want to print! 3D printers can turn a digital file into a real-life three-dimensional object. They do this by printing layer by layer, until the object is finished.

You can easily find digital files online that you can download and use to print your Christmas decorations, a couple of examples are:

• My Mini Factory
• Thingiverse 

Manchester Metrology Ltd is a leading supplier of metrology equipment including 3D scanners, 3D trackers and 3D printers. Manchester Metrology has 4 top of the range 3D printers available to hire or use as a service – these include Project 460 Plus, Figure 4, Fabpro 1000 and Markforged 2.

Manchester Metrology also has available the Snapmaker 3D printer. With its 3-in-1 software, it allows your creations to be just a few clicks away. The Snapmaker software updates regularly with new features to enable users to have the best possible experience when using it.

It operates at very high precision and with its ‘all metal build’ frame allowing very high quality prints. It is the perfect choice for rapid prototyping. See it in action here.