Light Up Reindeer Headband

Do you want to look festive during the Holiday season? Do you want to spice up your winter wardrobe? If so, this is the instructable for you. Here, you will learn how to make this super fabulous reindeer headband with a light-up wreath in the middle. A perfect look for Christmas!

There are many supplies that are required for this particular instructable. The supplies are the following:

Technology Based:

• A circuit playground express (cpx) along with a battery pack to which it will be connected.
• USB cord
• A laptop

Crafts Based:

• A simple headband (preferably red)
• An A4 size of brown felt
• Small pieces of sturdy dark green, red, and black felt
• 1 skein of dark brown, dark green and red embroidery thread
• A sewing needle
• Red, green pipe cleaner
• Red pom-pom
• Cardboard
• Cotton stuffing
• Scissors
• Glue gun

Note: you will be able to see all of the materials as we move through the steps.

First, we are going to create the code that will be used to create an interchanging red and green light show on the circuit playground express (cpx), which will later be transformed into a wreath. In order to create the code, type makecode.adafruit.com in your search bar. Once doing so create an account and open a new design. Once that is done look at the photos and video to see the steps that need to be taken.

Your final code should look like this once it is done. When it looks like this, press download and take your cpx along with the cord, and plug it into your laptop (you may need a USB plus depending on what laptop you have). Then take the download darg it into the cpx icon which will have popped up on your desktop. Your code should then show up on the cpx.

Now that the tech part of the project is done, it's time to get crafty. Take your brown felt and draw four reindeer antler outlines (note make them slightly bigger than you would like them to look). Once the reindeer antlers are drawn on, cut them out using scissors.

Now that that is done, take two of the reindeer antler cutouts and line them on top of each other (represent the back and front sides of the antler). Then take the needle and the skein of brown embroidery thread and thread the needle. Then start sewing using a running stitch, 1-2 mm from the edge of the antler in order to stitch the two together. Continue till you have sown around the whole reindeer antler. Then repeat the same process with the 2 other cutouts to make the second antler.

Now that you have the reindeer antlers stitched up, you need to take the stuffing and start stuffing the antlers. In order to do so you'll need a chopstick or a pencil to help you get the stuffing to the foremost corners of the antler. Then using the pencil or chopstick to aid you to start slowly, piece by piece filling the antlers. Keep filling the antler until you are satisfied with the shape its taken, however remember to keep little bit empty at the bottom of the antler so that you can then attach it top the headband. Once you are satisfied and done stuffing, stitch the bottom closed. Do the same with the second antler.

Since the antlers are now all ready, it is time to attach them to the headband. In order to do so, you need a glue gun. To do so you need to tightly wrap around the empty end of the antler and apply glue to the very end and stick it onto the headband like in the picture. Hold for a while to let the glue dry. Again, do the same for the second antler.

Now it is time for the finishing touches for the antlers, which is a holly. To make a holly, you need to take the dark green felt and cut out a holly outline (which you can find on google with a simple search). Once that is cut out, all you need is a red pom-pom. Then hot glue the pom pom on top of the holly cutout in the place of the berry. Once that dries, hot glue the holly onto the bottom of one of the antlers.

Last but not least, it is time for the wreath, which may be the trickiest part of the process. To get it started, take your dark green felt and cut out a circle by tracing the shape of the cpx. Then take the black felt and cut out a smaller process which will act as the center of the wreath and hot glue the small black felt circle onto the green felt circle.

Now that that is done, poke holes into the dark green felt where the lights are on the cpx (as shown above).

Then, take the dark green embroidery thread and stitch the felt to the cpx through the holes you poked through and the holes that line the outside of the cpx (as seen in the picture above). Once you have gone through every hole, tie the end in a tight knot and hot glue it to the back of the cpx so it is hidden.

Take the wreath (felt covered) and plug it into the battery pack cord that comes with the cpx. Then switch it on and the code you downloaded earlier should automatically play. If not redownload the code on your laptop while your cpx is connected.

Now cut out a small piece of cardboard and hot glue it to the back of the cpx along with a short strip of red felt which will also have been hot glued to the end of the cardboard piece. After that has dried, tightly wrap the red felt around to the front side of the cpx and glue it on.

If that hasn't secured the cpx on and it is not upright, take the red pipe cleaner and wrap it around the rectangular part of the cardboard until the cpx is secured and hot glue the ending to the back.

Lastly, if the cpx still needs a bit more securing, you can take a small stick, put it through the bottom of the cpx and let it slide up to the top for extra stability.

Now that the cpx or in other words wreath is stuck on, it is time to take care of the cord and battery pack attached. In order to do that you will need to hot glue the cord along the back side of the headband until you reach the battery pack, which you will also hot glue onto the headband, in a manner in which the on and off switch is facing away from your head for easy access. By attaching the battery pack like so it will tucjked behind your ear once the headband is put on.

Finally, it is time to add the finishing touch to the wreath, by adding a red bow to the top and taking a green pipe cleaner, and hot gluing around the wreath, to give it a cleaner look.

For the green pipe cleaner all you need to do is apply a little bit of hot glue around the wreath and then stick on the green pipe cleaner *note that this step needs to be done quickly so the glue doesn't*. It can also be done in portions where you start off by putting glue around a quarter and then sticking the pipe cleaner to that and then adding the rest step by step, if you want the cleanest possible look.

If you do not have a bow, you can make one by simply cutting out a 5 cm in length and 1 cm in width strip from the red felt and fold the two ends over to make a bow like shape (this can be done however you want because the way the bow looks is really up to you). Then take the needle and some thread and stitch them together through the middle where they both overlap. Again, the bow is optional, so if you cannot find a bow and are having some trouble making your own, you can leave the wreath as is, it is simply and extra detail.

Now that all of that hard work is done, turn on the battery pack, put on the headband and you'll be the best looking around!