What can 3D printing do for your Christmas? It can bring a festive atmosphere to your home by creating 3D printable Christmas ornaments, gifts, and toys. Let 3D printing enhance this year's Christmas celebrations! We offer free STL files for you to create the best 3D print gifts and decorations, including easy-to-print gadgets and more challenging 3D projects.
1. Christmas Crystal Ball
Add a touch of holiday magic to your home with these wonderful DIY crystal balls! However, making these Christmas decorations is not that easy and requires some technique. In the beginning, we used Anycubic Colored UV Resin and a resin 3D printer to create the base and body. Then, this 3D-printed Christmas ornament project must undergo post-processing steps like washing and curing, removing supports, painting, sanding, and more. Next, we used glue to assemble the printed pieces. For finer details, sprinkle white powder to mimic snow. The final step is to place it within a clear globe shape, just like capturing the most beautiful moments of Christmas.
2. Red-Nosed Reindeer
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, the ninth and youngest of Santa Claus's reindeer, uses his luminous red nose to lead the reindeer team and guide Santa's sleigh on a blizzard Christmas Eve. Jingle bells...jingle bells...do you hear his footsteps? Rudolph is leading his friends and Santa Claus to deliver gifts to you. Wish you all the best!
We applied both FDM and MSLA technologies for this 3D-printed ornament project. An FDM machine was used to quickly produce the base of the decoration, while a resin printer was utilized to achieve intricate details, such as Santa Claus and reindeer figurines. In fact, each of these technologies has its own advantages and disadvantages. If you're interested, I recommend checking out an article about FDM vs. SLA.
Moreover, Anycubic, a trusted global manufacturer, offers affordable 3D printers, such as the Kobra 2 Neo. This entry-level, high-speed printer is priced below $200 and capable of reaching speeds of up to 250mm/s. On the other hand, the Photon Mono M5s is a middle-format 12K resin printer with various smart printing features.
Unfortunately, this exquisite piece currently does not have available STL files. However, you can visit the Thingiverse website to download free files and use this work's structure as inspiration to DIY your personalized creation.
3. Classic Nativity Scene
Christmas is also the annual celebration of Christ's birth. This Christmas nativity figurine set typically includes Mary, Joseph, Jesus, animals, and the kings. We used Anycubic's Photon Mono X 6K to print this nativity scene. Now, this machine has an upgraded version, the Photon Mono X 6Ks, featuring a 6K resolution and a 9.1-inch LCD screen. The significant improvement is the upgraded light source, resulting in smoother print surfaces and reduced layer lines.
4. Nestable Christmas Tree
This is an easy 3D-printed Christmas ornament that requires no supports and consists of three parts, but no assembly is needed. Once printed, these parts fit together to create a cute Christmas tree. Additionally, its geometry is compatible with both FDM printers and resin printers, yielding a flawless final result. We used Rainbow Silk PLA and eco-friendly transparent green Plant-based UV Resin for this project. The former offers vibrant colors and may not require additional painting, while the latter requires painting but provides high precision. It's unfortunate that this adorable design is not free; two US dollars are needed.
5. Nightmare Before Christmas
This is a diorama of Nightmare Before Christmas, a Disney movie, measuring 180 x 102 x 90 mm in size. The creator shared five STL files, indicating that to make this diorama, you'll need to separately print and assemble them together. The creator also mentioned spending over 24 hours to complete this diorama, using a layer height of 0.15mm. It's suggested that the moon can be printed using glow-in-the-dark filament.
6. Table Bowling Game
This is a 3D-printed fun Christmas game for family bonding, making Christmas more enjoyable. The creator suggests printing 10 pins and a support-required ball with 0.1mm resolution and 50% infill. Meanwhile, a pinsetter should be printed at 0.2mm resolution and 10% infill. Finally, simply adding some details to the pins with red paint is recommended.
7. Snowman
This adorable snowman decor is wearing a coat and tie, stepping on a large snowflake, and is about to sweep the chimney with a ladder. The model printed by Anycubic Photon Mono 4K, has three files that allow you to print separately (files named "snowman" and "snowflake") or in one (file named "whole"). It is recommended for beginners that printing 3d models separately and gluing them together is more likely to succeed than printing as a whole.
8. Santa Cubi
Cubi wishes you Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year in advance! Cubi, the mascot of Anycubic, was cosplayed Santa Claus with a beard and holding a candy cane. It was printed by Anycubic Photon Mono, but we recommend an upgraded printer: Anycubic Photon Mono X2. Large building area of 9.1" monochrome screen and higher precision of 4,096 × 2,560px (4k+) for freedom to make. Let's watch a video to see how we modeled, printed and post-processed the Santa Cubi.
9. Santa Claus Advent Calendar
This features Santa Claus as the background of the calendar, and two cubes with numbers act as a countdown calendar. Printing the model at the designer's settings takes approximately 3.5 hours to complete. We scaled up the model and used the large-format printer - the Kobra 2 Max - to build the Santa Claus, while the Kobra 2 Pro, a high-speed printer, was used to create the cubes.
10. Christmas Tree Advent Calendar
The designer, pleppik made a shape of a Christmas tree, this advent calendar has 25 small gifts on it such as the wrapped present, gingerbread house, bell, Santa hat, star and so on. Print one gift and box each day, and on the last day, assemble them into a Christmas tree that will make an incredible decoration for your home or a meaningful gift for someone you love. Grab a spool of filament to start it and don't forget that time is ticking!
By the way, do you have enough filaments? Need more good-quality and affordable consumables? There are promotions for Anycubic Filaments during holidays!
11. Christmas Village
The Christmas miniature village decoration was remixed from another two works. The designer FiveNights combined a spiral tower with a Christmas village. As to the print settings, it requires 7% infill, 0.2mm layer height with no support or raft. If you print the model with the default setting, not to scale its size up, and the size of 150×150×128.5 mm probably takes 18 hours and 16 minutes. So it is relatively easy to print.
12. Pop-up Toy
As long as you press the small gift beside Santa's seat and it will trigger the toy to pop up stuff from a big present. What's interesting is that when assembly, it doesn't require metallic springs, bolts and etc that can be printed from the files. The designer gave a tip that keeps it in pop-up mode, when it is not in play. Otherwise the 3d printed spring will lose its elasticity. Although it's small, it's made up of many parts, not quite an easy project to complete.
13. Christmas Tree Lamp
As the image shows above, the designer printed a batch of Christmas tree with a star topper in different sizes by scaling the models up and down. If you want to achieve a metal-shining outlook, try Anycubic Silk PLA. Two main tree body versions are provided, so you have two methods to finish the print: 1. Print the file of the main body with a solid base, then cut the two parts out to fit a light. 2. Print the body and the base separately, but make sure your slicer is not trying to print an inner wall, otherwise the two parts can't fit together as a rebate inside the body is added. Don't forget to print the file of the topper star twice to put it together and insert it on the top of the tree hole.
14. Christmas Deer
Nice Holiday print! It will be a beautiful view with a strong festive atmosphere, if a group of painted deers stands in a few rows, with the decoration of bells or bows around their necks. There are 27 remixes works that are also wonderful, some turned it into a deer lamp, voronoi deer, geometric deer, etc. The designer said, to print without support, with a brim, 10% infill, but it seems that it is not that easy to finish, because a lot of makers commented that the model needed supports. Adding supports to prevent failure the first time. Moreover, printing this deer with a resin printer is another good choice as it can handle some detailed and fine edges.
15. Customizable Silhouette Globe
This holiday print is one of the best gifts for your friends or family as you can customize the scene which is easy to make. As the designer said, "The base can support up to 3 panes, and there are 9 options (+1 blank pane) to choose from. A full snow globe can be printed/assembled in about 3.5 hours." Due to different printers having different tolerances, there are loose bases and snug bases for makers to pick. If the slot of the base is still not that snug for the printed panels, add some glue. On the contrary, if it is too tight to fit, use a tool to file the edge of the panel.
16. Sleigh Card Kit
It's a cool idea that turns the card from 2D to 3D. Snap the parts and interlock them. Making the sleigh requires printing 3 sets of cards, each measuring 120 x 120 mm. If you're interested in this project and looking for the full, here's the link for Reindeer Christmas Card Kit which is also made by the same designer.
If you are interested in this kind of theme, check the related article on 3D Prints for Last-Minute Christmas Ornaments & Gifts.