Takeaway Trinkets 

Takeaway Trinkets began one evening at a Christmas party. I was giving my wife’s sister’s boyfriend a hard time about all the mass-produced stuff—mostly from China—in the local gift shop. He looked at me and said, “Well, why don’t you make something then?”

Challenge accepted.

I had just bought my 14-year-old daughter a 3D printer for Christmas—she’s into STEM and dreams of becoming an engineer—so I figured, why not put it to use? I said, “You know what? I will.”

It didn’t take long to land on the perfect idea: the lifeguard towers of Siesta Key. Or as I like to call them, the lifeguard shacks. With my daughter’s help, we headed to the beach one afternoon, took some measurements, and got to work. (Okay, mostly it was me fumbling through Fusion 360 and her fixing it.) It wasn’t easy—it took three months to perfect the design and the printing process.

Eventually, we delivered our first batch to a local gift shop. A few weeks later, they were completely sold out.

And that’s how it all started—a dad and his daughter, building something local, meaningful, and just maybe, something that’ll help pay for her college one day.