Family Day in February is one of those statutory holidays that carries a simple, powerful mandate: spend intentional time together. No gift exchanges to stress over, no elaborate traditions to uphold — just a long weekend dedicated to being present with the people who matter most. The challenge, as any parent knows, is finding activities that genuinely engage everyone across age groups. Toddlers, teenagers, and grandparents have different attention spans, skill levels, and interests.
3D printed figurines and collectibles provide a surprisingly effective framework for family activities because they are tangible, customizable, and scalable to different skill levels. A five-year-old painting a duck figurine and a teenager constructing an elaborate diorama are both engaged with the same medium, at their own level, in the same room. That shared-but-differentiated engagement is what makes a family activity work.
The Figurine Painting Party
A painting party is the most accessible family activity built around 3D printed figurines, requiring minimal setup and accommodating any age from preschool through adult. The concept is simple: provide a selection of unpainted figurines, set out acrylic paints and brushes, and let everyone create.
Supply list for a family painting session:
Figurines work best when they have clear, defined features that are easy to paint — ducks with distinct bill, body, and feet sections are ideal starter pieces. Gnomes with their hats, beards, and clothing provide more detail for older painters. Order figurines in white or light-colored PLA for the best paint adhesion and color vibrancy.
Acrylic craft paint is the right medium — it adheres to PLA without primer, dries in minutes, cleans up with water, and comes in every color imaginable. Craft stores sell multi-packs of small acrylic bottles for under twenty dollars that include enough colors for a full family session. Add a few brushes in different sizes (small round for details, medium flat for large areas) and a cup of water for rinsing, and you have a complete setup.
Tips for successful painting sessions with mixed ages:
For younger children, simplify the palette. Three or four colors are plenty. Demonstrate the “big areas first, details later” approach — paint the entire hat red before trying to add a buckle. Expect imperfection and celebrate it. A gnome with a wobbly smile and one blue eye and one green eye has more personality than a perfectly painted production piece.
For teenagers and adults, the challenge is welcome. Introduce techniques like dry brushing for texture highlights, wash techniques for shadow and depth, and fine-line detail work for eyes, buttons, and accessories. Reference images on a phone or tablet help ambitious painters plan their approach. The competitive element — who can produce the most creative interpretation — keeps older participants invested.
Display the results together. A shelf or mantelpiece with the family’s collective painted figurines becomes a lasting record of the activity. Date the bottom of each figurine with a fine-point marker so future you can look back and remember exactly when each piece was created.
Collaborative Diorama Building
Diorama building is a step up in complexity from painting, suitable for families with children roughly seven and older. The collaborative nature — everyone contributes to a single shared scene — builds teamwork while producing a display piece the family created together.
Start with a base. A wooden craft board, a piece of dense cardboard, or a shallow box lid provides the foundation. Cover it with craft paper, paint it to suggest ground or water, or leave it raw for a minimalist approach.
3D printed figurines populate the scene. Choose a theme that the family agrees on — a garden scene with gnomes, a pond scene with ducks, a fantasy landscape with dragons and towers, a winter village. The theme guides material choices and keeps the composition cohesive.
Natural materials fill the environment around the figurines. Small stones become boulders. Moss harvested from the yard becomes forest ground cover. Twigs become tree trunks. Sand becomes beach or desert terrain. Pine cones become trees at the right scale. The act of going outside to collect these materials is itself a family activity — a nature walk with purpose.
The construction process naturally distributes tasks by age and ability. Younger children place stones and spread moss. Older children and adults handle the more precise work of positioning figurines, building structures from craft sticks, and creating water effects with blue cellophane or resin. Everyone contributes visibly to the final result.
A completed diorama serves as a long-term display piece and, more importantly, as a tangible artifact of time spent together. It sits on a shelf and reminds the family of that specific Family Day long after the weekend ends.
Starting a Family Collection
Collections are inherently long-term, which makes starting one on Family Day a strategic choice — it creates a recurring activity framework that extends well beyond a single weekend.
The approach is democratic: each family member selects one figurine from the shop that represents something about their personality, interests, or sense of humor. Dad picks the fishing gnome because he loves fishing. The twelve-year-old picks the dragon because dragons are her current obsession. The eight-year-old picks the astronaut duck because he wants to go to space. Mom picks the yoga gnome because the family knows she needs more of it.
Display everyone’s choices together on a dedicated family shelf. The collection grows on special occasions — birthdays, holidays, report card celebrations, or simply “because it is Tuesday and we felt like it.” Over time, the shelf becomes a portrait of the family’s evolving interests and inside jokes. The fishing gnome that Dad picked three years ago sits next to the gamer gnome he picked last year, documenting his hobby shift.
The Mystery Box subscription adds a communal element to collection building. A monthly curated surprise box arrives, and the family opens it together. Who gets to keep which piece becomes a negotiation exercise that is itself a family interaction.
Learning About Modern Manufacturing
Family Day can include an educational dimension without feeling like school. 3D printed figurines are physical objects that exist because of a specific manufacturing process, and understanding that process is genuinely interesting to most kids.
Start with the figurine itself. Point out the layer lines — the thin horizontal ridges visible on the surface. Explain that the figurine was built layer by layer, from bottom to top, by a machine that melts plastic filament and deposits it in precise patterns. The concept is straightforward enough for a six-year-old to grasp.
Show time-lapse videos of 3D printers in action. These are widely available and inherently mesmerizing — watching a formless blob of melted plastic gradually become a recognizable duck or gnome over the course of a compressed minute is compelling viewing for any age. Discuss how the printer knows where to put each line of plastic (computer instructions), how the design was created (3D modeling software), and how the design goes from a single printer to mass production (print farms with hundreds of printers).
For older kids, the economic dimension is interesting. 3DCentral operates a fleet of over 200 printers from a facility in Laval, Quebec. That is a real business employing real people in the local manufacturing sector. The figurine on the shelf is not an abstract consumer product — it was produced by specific machines in a specific building, managed by specific people, in a specific city. That tangibility connects the abstract concept of manufacturing to a concrete, holdable object.
Visit our About page together as a family for more information about how our Quebec facility operates and the Made in Canada manufacturing philosophy that drives everything we produce.
Gift Making as a Family Activity
The final Family Day activity framework uses 3D printed figurines as the basis for collaborative gift-making. Selecting a gift together, personalizing it together, packaging it together, and presenting it together transforms gift-giving from a solo errand into a shared experience.
Choose a recipient — a grandparent, a teacher, a neighbor, a friend. Browse the collection together and discuss what the recipient would enjoy. The selection process itself is valuable family time — it requires thinking about someone else’s preferences, discussing those preferences as a group, and reaching a consensus.
Personalization adds the family’s creative fingerprint. Paint the figurine in the recipient’s favorite colors. Build a small custom display base with the recipient’s name. Write a card that each family member signs. Package the gift in a decorated box. Each step involves the whole family and adds layers of thoughtfulness that a store-bought gift cannot match.
The act of collaborative gift-making teaches children something important: that the value of a gift lies not in its price tag but in the thought, effort, and personal meaning invested in it. A hand-painted gnome figurine selected, customized, and presented by the whole family carries emotional weight that far exceeds its material cost.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What type of paint works best on 3D printed PLA figurines? A: Acrylic craft paint adheres well to PLA without requiring primer. It dries quickly, cleans up with water, and comes in a wide color range. For a more durable finish, apply a clear acrylic spray sealant after the paint is fully dry.
Q: What age is appropriate for figurine painting activities? A: Children as young as three can participate with supervision, using large brushes and simple color choices. The activity naturally scales in complexity — older children and adults can pursue detailed painting techniques on the same figurines.
Q: Does 3DCentral sell unpainted figurines for painting projects? A: Many of our figurines are available in white or light-colored PLA that serves as an excellent painting base. Browse our collections for pieces with clear, defined features that are easy to paint at various skill levels.
