As a child I looked forwards to the unveiling of the Christmas tree, and the fancy light globes that were updated with new shapes and characters every year, as the old globes burnt out.

The photo here shows Christmas of ’61 with big cousin Renee, the light globes are visible here, although they are a bit hard to make out.

For almost the last 30 years, about once a year, I’ve tried to find them on the internet without success, as the years went by I kept getting more and more rubbish masquerading as ‘Fancy Christmas Tree lights’. Other search terms I’ve tried include Ornamental, Elegant, Decorative and Pretty, to mention a few.

Amongst Dad’s belongings I found a box containing the last of the fancy globes, along with a few of the more regular ones. I took a photo of ‘Jiminy Cricket’ and did an image search, they were there, I’d been searching wrong, they are called ‘Figural Christmas Globes’.

I thought, perhaps that modern manufacturing techniques might have resulted in their resurgence, but it seems all modern manufacturing is good at is quantity.

The more I thought about it the more I felt I had the skills to recreate these globes, and in a modern, economical and indeed more interesting way. Not only that, I could describe the process in such a way that no special skills are required to recreate these globes. There is no need for a soldering iron, or knowledge of computer programming, it could all be done in a simple straight forward way.

I’m not selling anything, for everything you need to buy I’m providing links to what appear to be the cheapest sources. If you want to make a donation to help with web site hosting and the like, then there’s a Donate link above.

Just a photo or two of your lights in the comments section will be greatly appreciated. If you want to sell these this for profit, then you will need to negotiate royalties with me.

For me the first step was to create 3D images of the globes, you don’t need to do this as I am making the scanned files available for everyone. But if you want to understand what is involved, click here link to Scanning.

A 3D printer will come in handy. If you have one, great, if you don’t, then don’t despair as there are many ways to get these printed without a printer. Many local libraries offer 3D printing services, some offer access to printers for free, some do the job for you for a nominal price, some even allow for borrowing of 3D printers, the same way you borrow books, check your local library and some not so local ones to see what’s on offer. Some local areas have ‘maker spaces’ which offer 3D printing similar to the way libraries do. Failing that you might have a local 3D printing club, or even a business that offers 3D printing services. Whilst I’m sure prices vary a lot the actual cost of consumables per globe is in the cents, so you should not have to pay through the nose to get this done, but it will all depend on the local pricing model.

Click Figurals to see the current figurals available for printing, and the files needed to print them.

The 3D printing is probably the hardest bit!

Depending on the globe you have printed you might need to paint it, click on Painting for painting tips.

For the ‘lighting’ to illuminate your globes, click Lights.

You will need a tiny computer along with some software to drive the lighting, click Processor.

You will need a way of powering everything, and there are a couple of possibilities click on Power.

One you have everything ready to go, check out Config to set up your processor to drive the lights the way you want them.

I will be adding more figurals as I create and/or get access to them, if you make some then I can add them here to share from one location. And remember, these aren’t just for Christmas, I’ve seen nautical figurals, and I imagine they might exist, or can be made for many occasions, such as Easter, Diwali, or anything else.

Feel free to comment or ask questions on the page most suited to your comment or question.