12 3D Printing Projects That Are Perfect For Beginners

Sci-fi devices become real all the time, and we'd argue the 3D printer is one of those. I distinctly remember as a teen when these things were becoming popular, and we all thought people would be printing up whatever they wanted from the comfort of their homes. That didn't come true per se (3D printing still tends to be fairly niche), but it's a relatively affordable, budget-friendly way to make anything you can imagine — provided it can be printed. 

3D printers provide cost savings if you can make something cheaper than you could buy it, and if not, at the very least, the design and printing process can be a fun learning experience. If you've just bought a 3D printer and want a simple project, here are some options for you to try.

Our criteria here are simple: We want projects that can be printed on virtually any 3D printer, ideally in a single sitting. If they require multiple printed pieces, they should be easy to assemble. Additionally, you shouldn't have to buy any special filament for most of these. Aside from typical cleanup to remove sharp edges and sand down rough ones, most of these should just work when the print is done without further processing.

If you've spent any time at all in the 3D printing space, you've likely heard of the 3DBenchy. You can find it here on Thingiverse. At first glance, it seems quite unassuming. A cartoonish tugboat should be effortless to print and might make a nice little decoration for your desk, right? Not so fast. This is a "torture test" — or, as the name suggests, a benchmark — for 3D printers. Its small size means it uses fewer materials and can be printed quickly, but it also increases the challenge since it requires some finer details and doesn't benefit from support materials.

3DBenchy's website outlines why this seemingly child's toy is no easy task. Every aspect of it — from its bulbous curved hull, to the overhangs, to the holes, to the curved, smooth surfaces — will reveal your printer's (or filament's) weaknesses in short order. It could be an irreplaceable diagnostic or calibration tool if you're having problems with other prints, or if you just want to see how well your new printer can do. Teaching Tech on YouTube has an excellent video describing how the Benchy can reveal things you hadn't thought of, like whether you're printing too fast or don't have proper cooling.

Luckily, since this is not an unsightly, utilitarian benchmark print like some others out there, it still has a use once completed. You can trick it out as a decoration or hang onto it as a reference for how certain filaments behave for your next project. It's a gift that keeps giving since you can keep printing it again and again as needed to polish and improve your prints.

Don't make the mistake of thinking a 3D printer is just for nerds to print things like Warhammer 40K models. There are tons of clever 3D printer projects to upgrade your home, but in the interest of easy projects, try a toothpaste squeezer. This Stand for Toothpaste V3.0 on MakerWorld by 3DKUB is a great option. Notable features include a vertical orientation, so you can give it a semi-permanent home on the bathroom counter or sink. It also includes a gear mechanism that prevents the toothpaste from unrolling itself. The design is frankly brilliant, expertly engineered to use a minimal amount of filament and be as easy to assemble once printed.

It works best with PLA matte plastic and can be printed all at once. Based on the comments, this is a relatively painless print with little margin for error; it's a vertical print, which for 3D printers is pretty easy to manage and frankly hard to accidentally mess up. 

Note, there's also a Stand for Toothpaste V5.0, branded for kids and featuring a quieter mechanism. If you don't like this particular version, there are endless alternatives using different designs and mechanisms to squeeze out toothpaste however you fancy.

Drilling into drywall — or any other material that produces fine dust — is a sure way to create a powdery mess all over your carpets and furniture. Trust me (from experience), it's not fun trying to get that stuff out from the corners and off the tops of the baseboards. Fortunately, 3D printers can also upgrade your garage with surprisingly simple tools. The Drill Dust Collector by YelTrik Designs solves that problem with one single printed piece.

Place the cup-like design over the hole you're going to drill into, so all of the powder falls into the collector for a clean job and easy disposal. The design is ambidextrous and includes slots for getting the right alignment. The creator has gradually polished it to include finger holds and surface grippers, and to prevent the drill hole from trapping dust. This is something you can print now and keep around for when you need it someday.

The creator recommends using PLA Basic for the print, but of course the color is up to you. It's all one piece, so you should be good to go by just loading it into your printer and pressing start. There's not much else to say about this one. Go print yourself a drill dust collector and save yourself a lot of headaches with messy home renovation jobs.

The Apple Watch can do a lot to help you with your health, but one thing it lacks when you buy it is a proper charging stand. This is a shame, since the Apple Watch goes into Nightstand Mode when charging while resting on its side, like a mini alarm clock. You could buy a stand like that for a dollar on AliExpress, sure, but 3D printing one will probably cost even less, especially without shipping. A watch charging stand is an incredibly easy and useful project. Dan_ID's Apple Watch Charging Stand is our pick, since it's simple and should work with any decor.

Like most Apple Watch charging stands, you route the cable through the bottom of the charger and out the back. The charging pad points out horizontally, flush with the rest of the construction. It's a simple yet effective and unobtrusive design that should go well with your desk. Note, the creator says this works with all Apple Watch versions, even if you have the much larger and bulkier Ultra, but you may want to add rubber feet so the charger doesn't slide around. If you don't have an Apple Watch, there are plenty of options for other kinds of watches that charge on a magnetic pad. You can find charging stands for the Samsung Galaxy Watch or the Pixel Watch, for example.

Reviews of the Nintendo Switch 2 have been generally favorable. It's basically the original Switch, but bigger, with most of its flaws (like a weak APU) addressed. One thing it continues to be, though, is incredibly unergonomic when used in handheld mode. 3D printers can fix that. Multiple people online have engineered their own bespoke clip-on ergonomic grip systems for the Nintendo Switch 2 — and all of them tend to be incredibly easy print jobs. One we liked a lot comes from pearigee.

pearigee's solution focuses on a tight fit, attaching to each individual Joy-Con rather than a case spanning the entire Switch 2. The design is intended to work whether you're using the Switch 2 in handheld mode or have detached the Joy-Cons. Commenters have printed it in TPU to great success, although they note that the grips can block the USB ports when you dock it.

As for using Joy-Cons in mouse mode, these grips may not be ideal. Instead, maybe try the Switch 2 Joy-Con 2 Mouse Adapter by rewolf. It adds a smooth, vertically printed mouse enclosure, with the Joy-Con sitting between the main mouse body and a thumb rest below the thumbstick. The design is meant for quick plug-and-play use, rather than a semi-permanent, tightly connected solution like pearigee's.

Laptops have gotten surprisingly powerful in recent years, making them viable as a primary desktop replacement rather than requiring you to spend money on a desktop as well. And they just keep getting thinner, with the powerhouse MacBook Pro expected to slim down further in 2026. Get yourself a stand to run your laptop in clamshell mode, i.e., with the screen closed and the laptop propped up vertically. Your 3D printer can make an excellent stand that will fit virtually any laptop out there and include extra functionality, like USB holders.

If you have a MacBook, our choice is the MacBook Air M1/M2/M3 stand (Clamshell Mode) by A tinkerer. It's designed primarily for modern M-series MacBook Airs. Aside from a secure base for your MacBook, the stand adds four USB-A slots to store things like dongles and USB thumbsticks, and uses the space below the shelf on each side to hold USB dongles or other slim items, like an SSD hard drive or an M.2-style hard drive enclosure. You should be able to print this with ABS, PETG, or PLA without issue, but if you have a different size laptop, you'll have to look elsewhere. This Adjustable Vertical Stand for Laptop by HappyMocha should work if you want something simpler for a thicker, larger notebook.

GoPros, like the latest GoPro Max 2, remain action cams at the top of their game. Want to mount one to your backpack? A cheap backpack mount can cost you as little as $12.99, but instead, try printing one for the cost of filament and your time. Veracon Engineering's GoPro Backpack Strap Mount (also for the Insta360) supports 8mm and M5 screws.

Users show the mount attached to backpacks of all kinds and designs, so it really is pretty universal provided you have straps to hook it onto. Most users seem to prefer ABS as the material. This version is the 29mm version, but it may not fit larger backpacks with wider straps. For that, the creator recommends the 39mm version.

From there, you can print an unbelievable number of GoPro accessories without spending a dime. There are GoPro tripods, bike mounts, car window mounts, hand grips, hard cases, and more. You can even print pieces of other parts, like ball sockets, locking nut assemblies, or thumb screws. If it can be printed, it can be made. So if you can imagine an accessory that fits your specific use case, now's your chance to learn a bit of 3D modeling rather than buying something that doesn't quite fit the bill.

A good phone case matters more than you might think. Luckily, phone cases are among the cheapest things you could possibly buy online, especially if you're willing to wait a month to get one from AliExpress. Or you could print one, possibly for even cheaper — and without the month-long wait. Search for the particular model of virtually any smartphone in existence and you're bound to find that someone made a case for it and shared their print. Take this TPU case for the iPhone 17 series from MOSS 3D, or one for the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, or for the Google Pixel 10 Pro XL.

Of course, the print bed of your 3D printer has more space than just for a smartphone case. You can find prints for cases that fit the iPad Mini all the way up to the iPad Pro 11-inch. Want a case for the Amazon Kindle or your AirPods? You got it.

Where 3D printing really shines, though, is making cases for niche devices that it would otherwise be challenging to acquire accessories for. Take, for example, the underrated XTEINK X4 handheld e-reader, which has a whole bunch of user-made cases available on MakerWorld. If there are somehow no cases for your device — or not the case you want — then this should be a relatively easy 3D printing project to take on.

Carrying groceries from the car to the kitchen is a great way to show off your strength and then secretly pretend like the plastic cutting into your hands didn't hurt. But when you're not showing off, print yourself a Grocery Bag Holder like this one from user finfindr. It's like most of the grocery bag holders you've probably seen out there, with two hooks around a thick handle that distributes the weight much better compared to carrying those plastic bags by hand.

The creator says that this particular model should support more than 10 bags, provided they don't weigh more than 16 kg (35.27 lbs). This particular build demonstrates how strong 3D-printed items can be, provided they're engineered well. Use it as a rough idea for how much stress or strain a similar print might be able to handle.

There's a whole bunch of 3D printer projects to upgrade your home if you just do a quick search. Grab yourself a couple of printed bag closure clips, or this one-handed universal Twist Tie Bag Clip. Just search for the word "kitchen," for example, and you'll find utensil holders, strainer bowls, drawer organizers, under-cabinet storage, egg holders, the list goes on and on.

The Apple Magic Mouse is a pretty cool mouse to use with its unique touch gestures, but it's also famously controversial for two reasons: One, it has a charger only on the underside of the body, and two, it's so unergonomic that just looking at it makes your wrist hurt. You could try alternatives to Apple's Magic Mouse, but if you've already got one that you don't want to replace, there's a way to make it a lot more bearable. FLOWERS GEAR's Apple Magic Mouse Ergonomic Attachment lets you continue to use the Apple Magic Mouse's touch capabilities while making it far more ergonomic with a simple removable design.

Based on the comments of those who have printed one, it slides on nicely and snugly and makes the Magic Mouse no longer a wrist sore. One user places it side by side with the Logitech MX Master mouse and shows how it gives the Magic Mouse a back end almost as large. Some users did have to sand it down a bit for a tighter fit and better hand feel, but regardless, this should be a really easy project that does wonders for your productivity — and, well, your wrist.

3D printers are recursive machines, in a way, because they can print parts for themselves. Just search for "3D printer parts," and you'll find countless examples of either replacement parts or third-party add-ons that facilitate the printing process. In the interest of keeping it simple, though, we'll look at an easy project that will provide great utility in the long run. This Sturdy Modular Filament Spool Rack by Antiphrasis is just the ticket. It's modular, so you can build a single level, two levels, or keep building up, and it's designed to either work as a vertical shelf or be flipped on its side.

The creator has also supplied optional add-ons, like drawers and labels — with more created by the print's users. The designer has a comprehensive guide on the page for printing tips, and the design has been iterated gradually toward perfection.

Take a look at the comments and you'll find some pretty dedicated users. @HpInvent has a massive storage rack with dozens of spools of filament, seemingly reaching up to the ceiling. Others like @KeeKoGo have iterated on the design to store an almost absurd amount of filament spools and supplies covering an entire wall, and then some. Case in point, you can always modify a print to fit your needs.

We have already looked at ways that 3D printing can save you money, and one of the ways you can definitely do that is with all the 3D printer projects to upgrade your home office. Those little $5 to $10 Amazon purchases can add up quickly when you're looking at cable management and organizers. So, in that spirit, here's a desktop organization tool that will be cheap to make and extremely useful: a mini Desktop Trash Bin by Benjamin Kott.

There's not much to say about a desktop trash bin normally, until you're designing or printing one; even the simplest items can have a surprisingly complex design, like a disposable aluminum soda can. The creator put a lot of thought and effort into choosing the size, the form factor, and the function. It works either as an open bin or as one with a hinged lid.

The result is a receptacle meant to be just small enough to fit on any desk, large enough to actually hold more than a couple of pieces of trash, and still be easy to print and intuitive to use without excessive complexity, like a spring-loaded lid. You do have to print multiple parts, but overall this should be a plug-and-play process for most printers. You can find an endless number of desktop bin alternatives, like clamp-on trash bins for sweeping stuff into them, and car trash bins meant to fit next to your door.