Ribbon Swirl Christmas Trees

thingiverse

I originally posted this on Myminifactory.com, but everyone is just so friendly over here I thought I'd share it here too! This design was based off of a ribbon silhouette Christmas tree card I made for my mom. I decided to change it up and alternate the ribbons for the cross hatch look and think both turned out wonderful. I tried to separate out the trees (since there are four designs) but I could only get three on their own. The criss-cross ribbon with ornaments is currently paired with the swirl tree with ornaments. What I'm most proud of for this design is that it was meant to be 3D from the very beginning. Unlike my other designs that are more two-dimensional and then put together to make something three-dimensional, this one has to be printed in one piece to work. When I started this design, I knew what I wanted to make, but wasn't sure how to do it. I ended up finding a tutorial on how to make a screw thread that made this design possible. I started with a cone and drew on it to make one swirl. I then followed the tutorial with making it three-dimensional and then copied that over and over and rotated them until I had the swirl tree. I used the Mirror plugin to create the double swirl tree. I wanted to be able to hang it on the tree, but I also wanted a star on top. I compromised by creating a cylinder and altering it so it was a star as well! You need to use support to print this, and the only time I printed these some of them broke :( but I fixed them using an old wood burner and melted pieces back together. So beware, they are fragile! This model was created with VECTARY - the free, online 3D modeling tool.