I like finding useful solutions to problems, I like making special things that people treasure. I have two kids with unusual names that love it when they can find something with their own name on it. I like making things that last, using materials that can be recycled. These things led me to set up this business designing and making interesting things. And that is why I chose personalised 3d printed gifts.
Why 3D printing?
I love using 3d printers because of the flexibility and print on demand production that they offer. When you see personalised products in gift shops it makes me wince at the thought of how many of those will be binned if no-one buys them. With a 3d printer, if someone orders a personalised item, we can print it for them and post it to them without any other waste: one item – one customer!
3d printing also means that there is not as much stuff being shipped around the world, because the filament that we use is incredibly compact compared to the volume of the products created. Without wanting to be too technical, using 3d printers also saves on a lot of material. This is because instead of using a mould for a solid product in mass production, we use a honeycomb style structure within the products which means that they are almost hollow. So, while still retaining strength, we can make products incredibly light compared to traditional manufacturing techniques.
Finally, all of our products are made from material that can be recycled and in most cases even composted (under industrial composting conditions). We mainly use PLA filament, which is a bio-plastic rather than petro-chemical plastic and can therefore be composted or reused. When that is not possible we still use PETF filament, which can be recycled at the end of the products life and ground up to make new products.
Why personalised printing?
When I made a set of personalised keyrings for my child’s party bags a while ago the kids all loved them. So many of them had unusual names which meant that they were very unlikely to ever find anything personalised in a normal shop. So to have a keyring with their names on was special. The thrill people feel on having something created just for them has inspired me to create and continue creating new ranges of personalised gifts (although obviously some are more practical like the toothbrush holders 🙂 ).
I look forward to making more designs in the future to add to the collection; I hope you’ll join me to see what happens next!
