TECHDADSLIFE.COM | 3D Printing
When I first got into 3D printing, I printed a lot of things that were impressive and useless. Geometric vases. Articulated snakes. A miniature Eiffel Tower that sat on the windowsill collecting dust for three weeks before being quietly relocated to the bin.
The turning point was printing something the family actually needed. A replacement clip for a fridge shelf. A cable tidy for behind the TV. A stand for the kid’s Nintendo Switch dock so it stopped falling over. Suddenly the printer stopped being a toy and started being a tool.
This is the list I wish someone had given me when I started: the things that genuinely earn their place in a family home, alongside the things that are just good fun to make. All of them are available free or cheap on MakerWorld or Thingiverse.
The Practical Stuff (That Actually Gets Used)
Around the House
Cable clips and management trays. Start here. Seriously. A set of desk cable clips, a monitor cable tidy, and a router cable channel will make you feel like the printer has already paid for itself. Print in PLA, takes two to three hours total, lasts for years.
Kitchen drawer organisers. Parametric drawer dividers that you can configure to your exact drawer dimensions. Print a set for the utensil drawer and the junk drawer in one afternoon. Life-changing in a mildly domestic way.
Replacement parts. This is where 3D printing genuinely pays off. Broken fridge shelf clip. Snapped coat hook. Missing battery cover on a remote. The toy that broke in a specific way that a £3 part would fix but the manufacturer does not stock it. Search MakerWorld first — someone has probably designed it already.
Bag clips. Better than the rubber bands currently failing to keep your pasta bags closed. Print a dozen in different sizes in PLA. They are trivial to print and genuinely useful daily.
Magnetic key holder. A wall-mounted holder with embedded magnets for your keys. Never leave the house wondering where they are again. Most designs take a standard 10mm magnet insert — buy a bag of them cheaply on Amazon.
Phone stands. A stable, well-angled phone stand for the kitchen counter, the desk, and bedside. Print one for every room. Takes about an hour each. Far better than propping the phone against a mug.
Egg holder for the fridge door. The moulded plastic one that came with your fridge holds eight eggs in the wrong place. Print a twelve-egg holder that actually fits the door shelf you have.
Under-desk cable management tray. If you have a desk with cables pooling on the floor like a nest of spaghetti, a printed tray that mounts underneath with command strips keeps everything hidden. Takes three to four hours to print and transforms the look of a home office.
Kids’ Stuff
Name plates and bedroom door signs. Every kid loves something personalised with their name on it. A room sign with their name in their favourite colour costs £0 in filament and about 45 minutes of print time. It is the first thing I tell new printer owners to make.
LEGO sorting trays. If you have LEGO in the house, you need these. Flat-walled sorting trays that stack and nest let you sort bricks by colour, type, or size without buying expensive storage solutions.
Fidget toys and stress relievers. Articulated dragons, gear fidgets, click-y cubes. Print one for each child and one for yourself. They are endlessly popular, quick to print, and MakerWorld has hundreds of variations.
Custom bookmarks. A personalised bookmark with their name, a favourite character, or a design they chose is a ten-minute print that a book-reading child will treasure.
Board game piece replacements. Lost the top hat from Monopoly? Printed a replacement banker’s tray? The community has designed replacements for most popular games. Also great for 3D printing themed dice towers for games nights.
Miniature figures. Articulated characters, dragons, animals — the range of printable miniature designs on MakerWorld is extraordinary. For kids who are into tabletop games, custom miniatures are an entire hobby within a hobby.
Custom phone case inserts. Phone cases with a slot for a custom design insert that you can swap out. Print ten different inserts for a teenager and let them rotate them. Much cheaper than buying multiple cases.
Workshop and Garage
Tool holders and wall mounts. PegBoard hook replacements, screwdriver holders, drill bit organizers, and tape dispensers. A printed tool wall is satisfying in a way that is hard to explain to people who have not done it.
Cable reel winders. If you have extension leads, power tool cables, or garden hose connections that end up as rat’s nests, a printed winder/holder keeps them manageable.
Parts bins and sorting trays. Stackable bins for screws, bolts, washers, and small components. Print a set in different sizes. Again, this sounds obvious, but doing it is much more satisfying than buying cheap plastic boxes.
Drill bit depth stop. A printed collar that clips onto your drill bit to prevent over-drilling at a specific depth. Sounds niche. Is genuinely useful.
The Fun Stuff (No Apology Required)
Articulated animals and creatures. Print-in-place articulated designs that come off the bed fully jointed — fish, snakes, dragons, crabs. They move, they flex, they are inexplicably satisfying to handle. Every person who visits your house and picks one up will want one.
Desk toys and mechanisms. Gear sets, marble runs, kinetic sculptures, perpetual motion demonstrations (they are not really perpetual motion, but they look like it). The mechanical engineering toy category on MakerWorld is exceptional.
Custom dice. Polyhedral dice in any number of sides, with custom face designs. For anyone who plays tabletop RPGs, this is a rabbit hole you will not return from quickly.
Chess sets. Several world-class chess set designs are available free on MakerWorld, including themed sets — space, medieval, geometric, abstract. Print in two contrasting colours. A completely printed chess set is a genuinely impressive object.
Cookie cutters. Custom shapes for any occasion. A cookie cutter in the shape of a child’s favourite animal for their birthday party is a straightforward print that gets an outsized reaction.
Christmas decorations. The festive print category on MakerWorld comes alive every November. Baubles, tree toppers, advent calendar boxes, illuminated snowflakes. Print your own decorations once, use them every year.
Vases and planters. Yes, I said I printed too many vases. But a well-designed vase in a thoughtful colour, printed in translucent filament on a windowsill, is genuinely attractive. The trick is design selection — pick one that looks intentional rather than like a default test model.
The Conversation Starters
Lithophanes. Upload a family photo to a lithophane generator, print it in white PLA, hold it up to a light. The image appears in three dimensions. It is the most immediately impressive thing you can do with a 3D printer, and it never fails to surprise people who have not seen one before.
Flexi prints. Designs printed in a flexible arrangement that behave like fabric — chain mail, fish scales, articulated armour panels. Print one in a bright colour and watch it become the most-handled thing in the house.
City skyline maps. A raised 3D model of a city skyline or landscape map. Your home town, a city you love, a place with family significance. Available for hundreds of cities on MakerWorld, and a genuinely meaningful gift.
The Tech Dad Take
| What I Think |
|---|
| The shift that changed my relationship with the printer was moving from printing things that looked interesting to printing things that solved problems. The cable clips and the replacement parts do not have the novelty of an articulated dragon, but they get used every day and they are a tangible demonstration of what the technology actually delivers. My rule now: when something breaks in the house, I check MakerWorld before I go to Amazon. I do not always find what I need — but when I do, there is a specific satisfaction to fixing something with an object that did not exist ten minutes ago. That never gets old. |
All of the above can be found on MakerWorld or Thingiverse. For print profiles and slicing, I use Bambu Studio — and if you are considering your first printer, take a look at my beginner’s buying guide for 2026.
What is the most useful thing you have ever printed? I am genuinely curious — find me on X / Twitter.