10 Surprising Things You Can Make With A 3-D Printer Today

3-D printers have come a long way since the technology initially debuted in the early 1980s.

Like most technologies, today's 3-D printers have become smaller, cheaper, and more advanced over the past couple of decades. 

As 3-D printers have evolved, so have the ways in which we use them.

The concept of using a computer to print everything from the shoes on your feet to tonight's dinner may sound like science fiction, but affordable 3-D printers have made this a reality.

Platforms such as MakerBot's Thingiverse, which offers an extensive library of ideas and models for 3-D printing, have helped the technology evolve from a a means of creating bottle openers and trinkets to shaping the way medical equipment and clothing are manufactured.

Here are a few common items that you probably didn't know were 3-D printable. 

Pizza

Mechanical engineer Anjan Contractor was granted $125,000 from NASA to create a printer that could produce pizza. The goal was to create a more efficient way to provide food for astronauts on long space missions. In a video posted in late 2013, Contractor said the printer works by laying down the dough, cheese, and protein in separate layers. 

Makeup

Harvard Business School graduate Grace Choi created her own mini 3-D printer called the Mink, which is capable of printing real makeup. The Mink, which will retail for $300 and debuted on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt, connects to your computer and allows you to choose different colors by ripping the color code from any makeup tutorial on the internet. With a little help from Microsoft Paint, you can print makeup such as eye shadow just like you'd print a document from your computer.

Guitars

Using a Cubify 3-D printer, the team over at ODD Guitars has built a business on 3-D printing premium guitars. The bodies of these guitars are printed using a manufacturing process called Selective Laser Sintering. The model shown here is based on a Les Paul-inspired design, and starts at $3,500. That may sound expensive, but it's still much cheaper than an actual top-tier Gibson Les Paul electric guitar, which could cost up to $10,000.