3D Printed Pendant Shapes With Textiles

Create your own pendant shapes to show the world your love for fabrics, textiles and embroidery. In this instructable I will show you how to combine textiles with 3D printing to create necklaces, earrings, and other kinds of jewellery in your own personal style!

If you are new to 3D-printing and Tinkercad and you want to start with something small and easy, this might be the instructable for you. I only bought my printer a month ago, so I am also a beginner.

For the pendants:

• 3D printer + filament
• Tinkercad
• Slicing software (I use Ultimaker Cura)
• Optional: sandpaper, spray paint and/or acrylic paint

For the textiles:

• Pair of scissors
• Glue (transparent all purpose glue)
• Toothpicks
• Fabrics: to create my examples I used mesh and fabric with small, detailed prints. You can use any kind of fabric you like, as long as it is thin and flexible.

Optional:

• Embroidery supplies: needles, small embroidery hoops, water-erasable markers, embroidery thread in various colors.
• Paint: (I used acrylic paint to paint my fabric)

Jewellery hardware:

Depending on your designs and desires. A simple thin string will do for a necklace, but I recommend a nice chain, a few metal jump-rings, earring-hooks and some pliers.

If you are new to Tinkercad, this is an easy project to get started.

However, first time Tinkercad users might want to watch a general tutorial first.

The steps to create your pendant shape are very easy. I’ve illustrated them in the picture above. I chose a heart-shape because it is an easy shape for beginners. If you are more familiar with Tinkercad you can use the same strategy to create any shape you like.

Some notes on shape and size:

Size: You can pick any size you want. In general, I tried to stay within the 3x3 cm / 4x2 cm range for the inner-shape. This size is small enough to still look nice as jewellery and large enough to work with.

Thickness: 2 mm thickness works just fine. If you want your design to be a bit more solid, go for 3 mm. 1 mm is also possible, but is a bit flimsy.

Now we start to design the inner-shape and make our shapes hollow.

Some notes on a snug fit:

When printed the shapes you created should easily fit together, nice and snug. When you hold the outer-shape, the inner-shape should not fall out.

However, depending on the quality of your printer and filament, results may vary. If your inner-shape does not fit inside your outer-shape, either sand it or scale it up or down in Tinkercad until it does. In my examples, only the heart-shaped pendant needed no adjustments. For all of the other shapes I had to scale down the inner-shape by 1 mm on both sides.

If your inner-shape is just a tiny bit too wide, you might be able to sand the edges a little bit to make it work. If your inner-shape is a tiny bit too small, you might be able to fix this later in step 6 (adding fabrics) with some glue.

The final thing we need to do in Tinkercad is adding a small tube-ring and save your file.

Before printing you need to 'slice' your STL-file with slicer-software compatible with your printer. I use Ultimaker Cura. If you are new to slicing, please check a tutorial first.

The slicer-settings always depend on your printer and your choice of filament. Therefore, I cannot guarantee my settings will also work for you. But to give you an idea, here are my settings:

• Printer = Easythreed K7
• Filament = Jupiter, PLA, white, 1.75 mm
• Layer height = 0,2
• Infill = 20 %
• Speed = 40 mm/s
• Temperature = 200 °C
• Build plate adhesion: skirt, line count = 3

This is an optional step. If you have a great 3D printer, and many colors of filament to choose from, you can skip this one.

But if you are like me, and you have an ok printer with only one color of filament, use this step to clean up your print and give it the color you want:

Sanding: I sanded the edges with sandpaper. To get into the corners of a small shape you can cut a small piece of sandpaper and fold it a couple of times. For sanding rounded shapes I made a 'sanding-stick' by duct taping some sandpaper to a pen.

Painting: I used spray paint (black and gold) for some shapes and acrylic paint for others. Both give great results. 2 layers of paint will do.

Now it is time to add your favorite fabrics! You can easily wedge the fabric of your choice between your two shapes.

Some notes:

• Depending on the thickness of your fabric and how snug your shape fits, you might not need glue at all. The benefit of not using glue is that you can always swap out the fabric. With glue though, your pendant will be more solid.
• When using really thin fabric, you might want to change the order of these steps. Instead of cutting the fabric close to the edges, glue the fabric to the creases first. Wait for the glue to dry, and then cut the fabric.
• If your inner-shape does not fit in your outer-shape, you may need to go back to Tinkercad, and make your inner-shape smaller. Subtract 1 mm from both sides and print a new one.
• Since you are working on a small scale, I find that using a pair of tiny, slightly curved scissors works best to cut your fabric as close to the shape as possible. I bought mine in a drugstore, they are sold as scissors to clip your nails.

The pendants give you many options to customize your jewellery any way you like and create something awesome that fits your style. The possibilities are endless 😊.

The photos show some examples that I created to inspire you. One of my favorite techniques is painting the textile with acrylic paint. I also tried some embroidery, and used embroidery strings to create a pattern.

This step can be as easy as adding a string. I prefer my pendants to be a bit more fancy, so I used some jewellery hardware for this final step. All you need to know is how to open and close a jump ring.

Tip: If you don't have any jewellery supplies you could repurpose an old necklace (perhaps thrifted).

Thank you for checking out my Instructable! This is the first one I have ever created, so I hope it was clear and inspiring. It sure was fun to make! I would love to see what you create! 😊