Marty:

I also am a 3D printer novice (and an Arduino user). Since you mentioned the printing of jewelry - I have been working on my first project, a model of my wife's 1962 Corvette, with the intention of printing two small models (30mm in length) for a pair of earrings for my wife. The main problem I am having is that when the model is scaled down to the 30mm size, the detail is still in the model, but none of the inexpensive "home" printers can capture the detail. I recently was pointed to the Shapeways.com site and you might want to look at it to print some samples to see what the different materials and printing resolutions will look like. I have not printed anything from the Shapeways site yet, still trying to fix the wall thickness problem with my model.

Good luck,
Charles