Inkvent Snowflake Box 2024

As you may have seen, I bought and swatched Diamine's Inkvent calendar last month (previously 1, 2, 3, 4). And last year, I had a Christmas tree-shaped stand for all of the inks that my husband designed and 3D printed (and whose files can be purchased, if you, too, want to 3D print your own!). While of course I could've reused that revolving tree stand, I had another idea for this year's stand/container, which was supposed to be a simple gift box to hold all the inks, and potentially take up less space on a shelf than the tree stand. As I was drawing up some ideas for the box, I was playing around with how to arrange the bottles (as opposed to a simple grid) and kept arriving at a fractal, snowflake-like arrangement. I discussed the design with my husband, and as he tends to do, he expounded upon my initial ideas and built something clever. He came up with a design for a nested box that has tiers that could be unnested and placed on pegs that raise the tiers into a kind of tree-shaped display.

At some point in the design phase, I did mention that while he didn't need to design in another mechanism using ball bearings to make the stand rotate, it would be kind of nice if somehow rotated, so that's why the three tiers are sitting on the lid. The center knob of the lid is the pivot/rotating point, while the silver dots provide support and lessen the friction of the bottom tier spinning on the lid. That part surprised and delighted me when my husband demonstrated it with one of the many prototypes he printed out (😅).

And of course, once you're done with the inks and want to put them away, the tiers can be closed up into the box. As you can briefly see in the video below, even the small pegs on which the tiers rest when in display mode have little "sleeves" that make them look like tiny Diamine Inkvent bottles! 🤩

This design took many, many iterations, and lots of prototype prints. Hubby learned a lot about 3D printing and CAD techniques while working on this project. The design could still be refined, so the 3D model files haven't yet been posted. But please let us know if you'd be interested in buying the files to print them out yourself! My husband was intentional about making the design small enough to fit on typically-sized 3D printer beds so that you don't need one of the larger 3D printers to print it out. And, of course, one of my requirements was that it should take up less space on a shelf for people who maybe don't have space for the tree stand from last year. Yeah, in a way, it has a larger footprint, but since it's collapsible, it takes up less vertical space. It's a pretty complex design compared to last year's tree stand, so if he does put it up for sale, the 3D model price would be higher than last year's version to account for that effort, but he hasn't yet finalized those details.

(I also encouraged him to work on a simpler, more compact storage box for the Inkvent bottles as I originally intended, and that is still in progress. Of course it's not going to be totally simple; that's boring...! 😆)

Anyway, I know we're way past Inkvent season now, but I wanted to show off the cool product my husband (with some design input from me) created!

Again, if you're interested in last year's Inkvent tree stand, you can find it here. And hey, if you have some kind words for my husband's work, please post them here, or catch me on Mastodon or Bluesky. I'll pass along your compliments to him. ✌️