While students diligently prepared for finals, the Snell Library 3-D Printing Studio was already in holiday mode—taking a high-tech approach to the season’s festivities.

The studio hosted a Thursday afternoon workshop for students to create cookie cutters, the first of three such workshops being held in the Digital Media Commons over the next week or so for students to make holiday-themed 3-D creations.

“Cookie cutters have become incredibly popular in 3-D printing,” says Mark Sivak, the 3-D Printing Studio manager and associate academic specialist in the College of Arts, Media and Design. “They’re robust and fairly easy and cheap to make.”

Sivak said the cookie cutters are made using a website called Cookie Caster that allows users to draw their own design or trace the outline of an existing image. After setting the height and width diameters, the images are then uploaded to the printer. The cookie cutters are ready for pickup a day or two after the workshop.

Some of the designs created Thursday included a train, snowman, and Santa’s hat.

Sivak will lead two more workshops next week: another holiday cookie cutter workshop on Tuesday at 1 p.m., and a laser cut snowflakes and holiday decorations workshop on Friday at 1 p.m. The 3-D Printing Studio is located on the second floor of Snell Library.