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People who can take a hunk of wood or lump of clay and fashion something fantastic with their bare hands have powers of creation that I don't quite understand.

But I've found a way to identify better with them -- by using a 3-D printer.

3-D printers are the best thing to come out of the labs in a long time because they allow for the manipulation of reality instead of virtual space. And although they sound downright magical, they work just as it seems they might.

Someone designs an object -- a cookie cutter, cup or canister -- on a computer and then sends that design to a 3-D printer. The printer does not draw a picture of the item on a piece of paper, as an ordinary printer would do. Instead, it physically builds the object, by squirting melted plastic out of nozzles. The plastic follows the computer design, and layer by layer, the printer constructs the object.

For years, large manufacturers have relied on hulking, expensive 3-D printers to make prototype parts for airplanes, cars and machinery. Recently, though, a new crop of 3-D printers and services has arrived to make this type of technology affordable for consumers. And so a true 3-D printer craze has started to take hold of the techno-hobbyist clan.

People are assembling 3-D printers from kits and then making toys, exotic ornaments, chess sets and toothpaste tube squeezers.

Some people replicate common objects, while others put their own spin on things.

Should you choose to enter the 3-D realm, the ways to get started range from pretty easy to "hunker down in the garage workshop for a couple of weeks" hard.

Here's a look at how you can get going, and perhaps take holiday gift-giving into your own hands later this year.

Objects at your service

If you want a taste of what 3-D printing is all about before committing to acquiring a 3-D printer, then a service like that provided by Shapeways is a good starting point.

Shapeways is more or less the Amazon.com of 3-D printing.

You go to its website and pick objects that other people have designed, tweak these designs or use the company's Web software to design something from scratch. Then, you simply order the product, and Shapeways builds it on high-end 3-D printers. A few days later, the object arrives at your doorstep.

You'll find all manner of ready-to-print objects on the Shapeways site, like decorative egg holders, art pieces, an iPod Shuffle neckband and jewelry.

Shapeways can print objects in various materials, including plastics of various colors, glass and even stainless steel. I've played around with customizing some of the ready-made cuff link and napkin ring designs.

The napkin ring highlights the good parts of the Shapeways service. You're basically building a ring out of words. So, you could throw a dinner party where each person has a napkin ring with the individual's name on it.

You simply pick the napkin ring design and then hit the "Create Your Own" button on the website. An application will fire up and present the object's design in 3-D along with boxes for picking the words, fonts and materials.

A "The New York Times" napkin ring made in white plastic costs about $5 and takes about one to two weeks to arrive.

I also took a picture of my son from Facebook, loaded it onto Shapeways and built a picture frame with a sort of embossed rendition on his cherubic countenance.

There are some kinks to the Shapeways service.

The order has to total at least $25, and the delivery times vary quite a bit because the company relies on partners to build the objects; construction times depend on how complex the object is. And even when you see your cartoonish object design in the site's 3-D viewer, you're not exactly sure what the final product will look like.

A 3-D robot

Courageous types will want their own 3-D printer, which can cost up to $100,000.

Hobbyist kits run in the $1,000 to $2,000 range.

Healthy helpings of resolve, patience and perseverance are required to get one of these things working. And, in the end, you have a 3-D printer that does plastic objects only, and crude ones at that.

The upside, though, is that you have a cool 3-D printer. Your neighbors will think of you as a mysterious creature from the future, and your children will love your ability to print toys on demand.

The absolute bravest of the brave will want to look at the RepRap project.

This is for people who want to hunt for the various parts needed to make a 3-D printer, build a 3-D printer and then print new parts to soup up their 3-D printer.

Check out the Bits From Bytes and MakerBot Industries websites. You'll find various kits available, ranging from about $700 to $3,000.

I tested out a BFB 3000 on loan from Bits From Bytes. This is a fully assembled machine that costs about $3,000.

Or at least it's called fully assembled. I had to tweak screws and knobs for what felt like forever to make sure the printing bed that held the object was almost perfectly level.

The effort is worth it when the machine springs to life, receives a design from the computer and begins humming away.

The software

To successfully print 3-D objects on your own machine, you need design applications and tools to tweak your creations.

All the machines I've seen require that you use design software that saves objects in the STL, or stereolithography, format.

There are free design packages like Blender and Google SketchUp and myriad commercial computer-aided design, or CAD, packages from the likes of Autodesk, Alibre Design and SolidWorks.

The Bits From Bytes machine comes with software that can take an STL file and then help you configure the 3-D printer to make the object. That part is rather painless.

The actual design programs are pretty easy for designers to use but more difficult for average people.