Large Letter and Shape Lacing Beads

When my daughter was young, she had this fun set of large beads that were mostly meant for helping gain more motor control and just having fun. I thought it would be fun to add more shapes and letters to her set!

I worked with pretty basic shapes in Tinkercad and then for some I just added a cylindrical hole from side to side, but for some letters, I wanted it to have more structure so I added a hollowed out cylinder through it. I used some negative letter holes in order to cut the cylinder down so it only goes to the edges of the letters and doesn't stick out the sides like an obvious hole. 

The picture of the all red beads and the one of them in the wood box show a combination of mine with the Melissa and Doug ones. 

I made these before I began investing in the VAST amount of filament I have now, so I printed them all in white and spray painted them, but when you are using these for kids, just printing in the color is much better than having to worry about paint toxicity. 

I do recommend using automatic supports from Build Plate ONLY! It will help with certain ones, but you don't want or need the supports inside the beads.  Otherwise, they should print with pretty standard settings. 

You can get string to use with these, but really all you need is shoelaces. 

**BE AWARE that kids put things in their mouths. Do not give these to too young of kids. Mostly for ages 3 and up. I've heard the choking hazard is if it fits down the center of a toilet paper or paper towel tube it is too small for young kids so use your best judgement and be safe. Consider these for older kids ONLY!

You can learn more about my design process on Instructables: Large Beads

Designed using Tinkercad.