3D Printed Monarch Butterflies: A Heartwarming Project

From Concept to Creation: Crafting Unique Giveaways

We were contacted to help create a giveaway for a kindergarten class during Meet the Teacher Night. We started out thinking, what would a kindergartner love to receive on their first day meeting their teacher? We began exploring various items that we had created in the past that our kids had liked. This included items that we have created using our laser and 3D printer. We settled on a 3D-printed articulated butterfly, a hatchling dragon, and a giraffe. We sent all of this off to the kindergarten teacher who made the request, and she couldn't decide, so she asked one of her kids to help pick. They agreed on the 3D printed butterfly.

The Monarch Mission: Bringing a Special Butterfly to Life

The sample butterfly we provided was cool, but it didn't quite fit what we had in mind. One of the school's traditions was to hold a Monarch Butterfly release every year in honor of a past teacher. We decided that not any butterfly would work, but it had to be a Monarch Butterfly. We got to work 3D printing several prototypes, but none of them fit the bill. They all lacked the true beauty of the Monarch Butterfly. We finally decided on another method, where Gabby created a 2D butterfly in Illustrator, and we then imported it into BumbuStudio and used the Flexi Toy Maker, which is included in their MakerLab. This was a super cool way of taking a design that we made and creating a 3D object from it.

The Finishing Touch: Custom Packaging with a School Stamp

Finally, we needed a cool way to package these up for the kids. We found some cool little chipboard houses in which the butterflies would fit, but they were missing something. Gabby had the idea of putting the school logo on the roof. We considered a couple of options, such as stickers, but ultimately decided that a stamp would be the best choice. The only issue was that we didn't have a stamp with the school logo. Where could we get a stamp quickly? Our lasers to the rescue. Gabby converted the logo into the format I needed for our laser, and I conducted some online research, finding settings that enable engraving the logo on a stamp. They turned out super cool, and I was even able to capture a time-lapse video of the butterflies being printed. This was such a fun project.