2008.12 Warm Material Felt Light

LED and Felt Brooch

A collection of LED-and-felt Christmas brooches

This time we made a brooch using an LED (light-emitting diode). LEDs are wonderfully convenient parts that shine pretty brightly on just a little bit of electricity. We love LEDs.

Now, here's how it's made.

Diagram of the LED's long and short legs

This is an LED. Just sandwich a coin battery between its legs and it lights up — that's all it takes. The LED has two legs, one long and one short.

Diagram of the coin battery's plus and minus sides

Coin batteries are a little confusing: the flat side is the plus (+) side, and the side with the raised rim is the minus (−) side — the opposite of an ordinary battery, so watch out.

Diagram of which way to attach the LED to the battery

When you sandwich the battery with the LED's legs, attach the long leg to the plus side and the short leg to the minus side. Attach it backwards and it won't light up.

The battery and LED taped together and lit up

Once the battery is sandwiched in place, wrap it with tape. Try attaching hook-and-loop tape (Velcro) to the back — now you've got a light that can stick to a sweater!

This is the Techno-Shugei Club's version of the LED throwie. What we took as our reference was a piece by Graffiti Research Lab called the LED throwie. It had a magnet attached, so it could be stuck onto buildings, trains, and other things.

A reindeer-shaped LED brooch with felt layered on top

Add some felt, and it gets even cuter!

This Christmas, why not sneak some illumination onto someone's back too?

A sweater's back covered in lit-up LED brooches

Materials: felt, LED, coin battery, hook-and-loop tape

This work's making-of process is also recorded in the original blog post: Read the original post →