Tomorrow is Maker Faire Newark. This is the first one ever in New Jersey. We’re so excited with a bit of an ambitious workshop schedule. I have to say that I really enjoyed making the display items for our booth.
Yesterday, I went wild with a staple gun. First, I had to buy my own. I think my husband hid his from me. I couldn’t find it in his tool bench but luckily found it at one of my favorite craft stores. Then, I went to town. The project: custom French Memo board with E-Feltie Flowers.
A French Memo board is relatively easy to make. You just need to get a cheap artist canvas in the desired size. Then inexpensive cotton batting to cover the front to give it some loft. I had to fold it over and use two layers; one was just not cutting it.
Then, I laid the batting and then the canvas on top of the blue fabric and stretched the blue fabric over the frame and started stapling away. That was fun. Then, I strung the ribbon diagonally and stapled it down on the frame in the back. I guess if I was really particular, I could have stapled it on the underside of the frame rather than the top…..did I happen mention that this was my first time using a staple gun without anyone’s assistance. I just made life easier for me and did the simplest for now to get the job done.
It wasn’t so bad. My past failure with the staple gun intimidated me a little but I was still determined. It turned out I wasn’t applying enough pressure to hold the gun flat so my staples always came out whonky.
Next, I pierced the sites where I would need to tack down the board with my E-Feltie Flowers. In addition to the layers of felt flowers you need to pierce, you also have two layers of ribbon, a layer of fabric, two layers of batting and a very thick layer of canvas.
The LED leads would get incredibly damaged if you just tried to poke right through without anything else. You don’t have to use the handy dandy paper quilling tool; a saftey pin or a needle would suffice. I suppose if you were really patient, you could carefully pierce all the layers without bending the leads too badly but I’m just not that patient.
When all was said and done, you would have a board that looked like this:
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Next was the wiring. I twisted the anodes into circles first and with a pencil marked the circuit path. Then, did the same for the cathode. Originally, I was going to do something with a switch but I just wasn’t in the mood to mess with it so I just laid down the copper tape and used scotch tape to secure the leads on top of the copper tape.
After a bit more fiddling, I was able to use a coin cell battery hold and power my circuit.
Voila!
Next, I’ll have to tell you about my hat that I bedazzled with felt flowers and a 4 pin LED (aka the piranha).
But, that’s a post for another day. Hope to see you at the New Jersey Maker Faire at the Newark Museum!
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