Takeaway Trinkets 

Takeaway Trinkets started on a random December night at a Christmas party. I was teasing my wife’s sister’s boyfriend about all the mass-produced souvenirs—mostly from China—filling a local gift shop. He shrugged 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 a STEM kid with big engineering dreams, so I thought: Why not try? I looked at him and said, “You know what? I will.”

The idea came quickly: the iconic lifeguard towers of Siesta Key—what I affectionately call the lifeguard shacks. My daughter and I went to the beach, took reference photos and measurements, and dove in. (In reality, it was mostly me battling Fusion 360 while she saved the day more times than I’d like to admit.) It took three months of revisions and failed prints to finally perfect the design.

When we delivered our first batch to a local gift shop, we had no idea what to expect. A few weeks later, they were completely sold out.

And that’s how Takeaway Trinkets was born—just a dad and his daughter creating something meaningful for our community… and maybe, just maybe, building the first little bridge toward her future engineering degree.