All posts by VickyTGAW

TGAW 3D on InsideNova

For 50 years, the town I grew up in has been having a large craft show each September. We always attended as children, but I never expected I would have a craft worthy enough to be in the show. But five years ago, I brought the show’s very first 3D Printing booth. I continued to represent 3D Printing again this year for the show’s 50th Anniversary. I managed to sneak into coverage of the show by InsideNova.

Occoquan Draws Large Crowd for 50th Fall Arts and Craft Show

Upcycling Keurig K-Cups into Daisies

I published a new video today going over how to upcycle Keurig K-Cups into daisies.

Although I do use 3D Printing, this project does not necessarily need to require 3D Printing.

NOTE – There is no slicing or modeling footage in this video. Instead, you’ll have a lot of footage of processing K-Cups. A lot of footage. 🙂

COMPOSTING (Starts at 1:30)
With removing the grounds from the K-Cups, you do have some options:
1) 3D Printed K-Cup Compost Tool from Shapeways (One of my earliest designs) https://www.shapeways.com/product/3SH…
2) 3D Printed Coffee Monsta Designed by Derek Bibeau https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:711329
3) Non 3D Printing Option – -A Fork (which is what I most commonly use now-a-days.

CUTTING DAISIES (Starts at 3:35)
With just a couple of deviations, my process mirrors the one documented in the Make It Easy Crafts blog post on making a Patriotic Wreath: http://www.makeiteasycrafts.com/2012/… Eventually, I sped up and improved the accuracy of the project with a 3D Printed template. That template is available on Thingiverse at: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:370…

MAKING CENTERS (Starts at 6:05)
I use 3D Printed Centers for my daisies which can be downloaded from Thingiverse (https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:370…) or purchased at Etsy (https://www.etsy.com/listing/715459369/) BUT– you don’t have to use 3D Printed centers. The Make It Easy Blog used embossed felt.

For the Virginia Tech Maker Festival last fall, we used a 1 1/2″ Circle Punch and yellow paper to help kids make their own flowers at the show.

FINAL ASSEMBLY (Starts at 7:42)
I used Goop to affix the centers to the K-Cups. For the pendant lamp shade, I used the Regolit shade from IKEA (https://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/pr…) and affixed the daisies via a Glue Gun.

You can also double up and paint the daisies for a different look. If you do paint them, I recommend covering a spot on the center with painters or masking tape. That way, your center is glued directly to the K-Cup and not a layer of paint.

Please do share any K-Cup projects you tackle. I would love to see them. As always, thank you for watching!

3D Printed / Plastic Canvas Heron

This year for my fifth Maker Faire Nova, I wanted to combine crafting and 3D Printing. I decided to make a giant 3 foot wide Great Blue Heron. The blank panels are 12 3D Printed pieces and all the colors were comprised of 130 hand-stitched Plastic Canvas panels. I am so in love with the final result and look forward to sharing it in June!

The 3D Modeling was done in Blender. I’m still working in Blender 2.78. I really do need to check out the beta version.

Most of the design work was done with Bezier Curves. Bezier curves are discussed in detail in the second chapter of “Blender 3D Printed by Example”*. I also did a talk on this topic at Northern Virginia Community College. The slides with step by step screenshots are at: https://www.slideshare.net/VickyTGAW/…

*If you do want to buy my book, please consider supporting another member of our 3D Printing community by using their Amazon Affiliate Link.

I translated my Heron design to 3D Printed outlines by using Blender’s Inset feature. Heads up– when you type in specific dimensions for Inset, those dimensions are for your object when it is at the 1:1:1 scale. The best practice is to first go to Object-Apply-Scale to tell Blender your object’s current dimensions are that 1:1:1 scale and THEN do your insets. For my outlines, I went with a thickness of 2mm. However, if you are hoping your piece supports itself, you’ll want to go thicker.

For printing, I split my outlines into 12 pieces with a maximum dimension of 280mm x 280mm. I believe We The Builders uses NetFabb to break up their community builds. In my case, I used the Boolean Intersection modifier in Blender.

The 3D Printed pieces also served as my templates for cutting the plastic canvas.

Tip– use colored Sharpies to help identify the pieces. Corollary tip – Invest in a white Sharpie for white pieces. When I used pink, it bleed all over my beautiful heron white.

Stitching was a THREE generation effort. Thank you to my Mom, my oldest son (and his classmate Gio!), and my husband for each tackling a panel.

Assembly was made MUCH easier thanks to a purchase of a custom frame from American Frame. I went with a frame with a 3/4″ rabbet height to accomodate the thickness of the 3D print, the plastic canvas, and the stitching. The outlines were attached by a Gorilla Super Glue Gel and black electrical tape. The needlework panels were attached with a glue gun. I spent a lot of time on the floor with this project. 🙂

I hope to see some of you at Maker Faire Nova. If not, perhaps the East Coast Rep Rap Festival which is October 12th-13th, 2019 in Bel Air, Maryland. Thanks for watching!

ERRF News on F3DPCH

Last night, the ERRF board were special guests on the Friday Night 3D Printing Community Hangout. We officially announced the dates of ERRF! It turned out that wasn’t the most fascinating part of the episode. Be sure to keep watching to hear about Jason Preuss and all his wonderful creations!

Heart Helix DNA Inspired Pendants Back on Etsy!

In March, I had the delight of selling my last in stock Heart Helix Pendant to a pair of sisters who discovered each other… via 23andMe! It was a thrill to have my pendant be a part of their very first meeting. I did order a few more and those pendants are back in stock. You can find them on my Etsy site in Plated Gold, Plated Rose Gold, and Plated Rhodium (which looks like silver)


Heart Helix Pendant in Plated Gold, Plated Rose Gold, and Plated Rhodium

Blender and Bezier Curves for 3D Printing on SlideShare

The Northern Virginia Community College is working on a T-Shirt 3D Printer. They invited me to come by and show the students how they could use Blender and Bezier Curves to turn 2D ideas into simple 3D models for the T-Shirt Printer. I had an absolutely fantastic time, as I always do talking about 3D Printing. If you missed it, you can still follow along with my slides from SlideShare.

We The Rosies on Tested

The Tested coverage of the We The Rosies build was recently released on YouTube. I make a very subtle cameo. At 5 minutes 41 seconds in, they talk about a piece filled with women’s names. That’s one of our pieces from Occoquan! Also, if you are wondering what my handwriting looks like for “x10y17z6”, that question is answered 6 minutes and 17 seconds in.

Hat Tip to the multiple members of the 3D Printing Community who reached out and let me know they talked about my piece! 🙂