Light Up Christmas Tree Earrings

Do you want to deck your head out in festive lights?

If so this is for you.

You will need:

1 x scissors

1 x yellow felt rectangle

1 x green felt rectangle

2 x earring hooks

2 x yellow LED

2 x resistors

2 x batteries

1 x wire

1 x green thread

1 x needle

The pattern is provided in first picture above.

Cut out the yellow stars from the yellow felt and the green triangles and circles from the green felt.

A good way to arrange your pattern on the felt to get an efficient use of material per cut is pictured above.

Push both the LED wires through the star, push the lower leg through the top of one triangle and the upper leg through the other triangle.

Make circles of the LED and resistor wires, by twisting them around the point of a pencil.

Use some wire to hold one circle of the LED to one circle of the resistor, using a conductive circle stitch.

To do a conductive circle stitch:

Thread wire into the needle.

Push the needle through the circle of the lead.

Pull wire until there is only about 3 cm left on the tail end of the wire.

Use the 3cm to make an overhand knot around the lead.

(to make an overhand knot make a circle and push the end through the middle of the circle and tighten the circle to cinch it.)

Cut any tail off the knot.

Thread the needle and wire through the middle of the lead circle over and over again from the same side so that there are small circles all the way along the edge of the larger led circle.

Thread some wire and sew the other circle of the resistor lead onto the middle of the circle of felt.

Use the same stitch as the previous step, but this time hold the felt next to the lead circle and push through the felt each time the needle passes through.

Thread some wire through the circle of the LED using the conductive stitch used in previous steps. Then use continue sewing with the wire in a tinsel pattern on one of the triangles using a running stitch.

To do a running stitch:

Push the needle through the fabric...

Pull through until thread is no longer loose but not yet pulling the fabric together making it bunch.

Follow an imaginary line along the fabric.

Push the needle through the fabric from the side it is on further down the imaginary line.

Then repeat as needed.

Using the thread tail sew a large X into the lower middle of the blank triangle.

Place the circle over the X use the green thread to sew the circle in place sewing around the edge of the bottom side of the circle using a running stitch.

Start and end the running stitch with an overhand knot. (an overhand knot is a circle with the end pushed through pulled tight.)

Keep the triangles together so that the LED wires are separated by the second triangle. Use green thread to sew the triangles together using a whip stitch and sew the star on top.

To do a Whip Stitch:

Tie an overhand knot on the end of the thread.

Push the needle through the fabric from the middle of the two bits of material.

Pull through until the knot hits the fabric.

Push the needle through both pieces of fabric so that it comes out on the same side it did last time, further along the edge.

Pull through until thread is no longer loose but not yet pulling the fabric together making it bunch.

Keep pushing the needle through from the same side looping around the edge of the fabric until you have gone all the way around.

Use the tail of the thread from the previous step to sew the star onto the earring hook.

Slide the battery into the circle pocket.

Repeat to make a second earring.

Why isn’t it working?

If you have finished and the lights are not turning on these are some things to try to fix it. And the basics of how simple circuits work.

The first thing to try because it is easiest to fix is to put the battery in facing the other direction. LED’s only allow electricity to flow (and light them up) in one direction.

Your circuit as an electrical diagram should look like the picture above

The plus negative symbol at the top is the battery, the rectangle on the right is the resistor and the triangle line with arrows pointing out on the bottom is the LED.

The straight lines are wire, in real life they go everywhere and are not at all straight.

The important things to note on this diagram is that the wire and components together make a circle (or rectangle) so that the electricity travels through every component (not around any) and back to the start to complete the circle.

If the wire before a component touches the wire after that component the electricity will not travel through that component and the LED will not light up.

This can happen if you do not cut the wire between step 5 and 6. Or if the felt between the LED legs does not separate them well enough, or the stitching comes through and extra layer of felt.

To fix this, cut unneeded wires that skip across components or put extra felt (or some paper) between wires that touch when they shouldn’t.

If the wires do not make a complete circle back to the other side of the battery the electricity will not be able to travel in the circuit at all and the LED will not light up.

To fix this use wire to connect the gap. This may mean joining a point that was missed or cut earlier, or you may have to put extra wire between the battery and the wire on the felt to make sure they touch.

What if your light is flashing or lights up sometimes and turns off other times by itself?

That means that you have one of the above two problems, but only some of the time. The battery may be bumping into the wires instead of resting against it or the wires on the front of the triangle may sometimes bump into the wires on the back. Follow the advice above to fix this.