If you’re an Idea Person like me, you might regularly wish that you had the concentration, attention span, skills, and resources to turn at least some of your frequent, brilliant ideas into reality.  After all, if you suck at bringing your ideas to fruition, they’re not going to make you wealthy or famous are they?

I recently discovered Ponoko, and though I have yet to actually play with it, I think this could be the ticket to helping me finally execute on a few of my ideas.  It’s only really relevant to a subset of my ideas (the ones that I can design in Photoshop or Illustrator, and that are some sort of simple manufactured physical object).  That’s okay though…it will help me focus.

The basic premise of Ponoko is that they have this awesome laser-cutting machine that takes an EPS file you create, and cuts it into a flat sheet of your material of choice, sort of like a giant superfancy stencil or puzzle.  They have a wide variety of acrylics and woods for you to choose from right now, and apparently plan to introduce additional materials in the future.

The really smart angle of Ponoko is that they’ve built their service to enable small businesses.  You can use them in a couple of ways: to produce cut sheets for you to assemble your product and sell it as finished, or to ship your cut sheets directly to an end consumer who then self-assembles your product as if it were a kit. They have even been smart enough to build an online marketplace that users can leverage to promote designs and finished products for sale in their own Showroom.

So if you’re itching to try building that wine rack/bookshelf/keyholder/mobile/laptop stand you dreamed up in the shower this morning, head on over to Ponoko.

If you’re a little less ambitious, but want to check out the designs and kits that other more creative minds are selling in the Marketplace, you might just find a really cool birthday or Father’s Day gift.