Portable Water resistant LED Picnic Blanket with hard center serving surface!

Here in Los Angeles there are a bunch of places to picnic in the evenings and watch an outdoor movie,
like Cinespia in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. This sounds scary, but when you have your own vinyl picnic blanket to spread out on the lawn, to protect from damp and spirits, with its own built in light source under a milk plex center table area, everyone can see what they're dishing up and which bottle is the red wine! I've designed this thing to fold up for easy transport to to run for 4-6 hours on rechargeable AA batteries.
Here is what you'll need:
Battery op 64 LED String (I bought mine from Dayva)
Milk Plex, I used a 16 x 18.5 x 1/8" lightbox top I had around
Vinyl with fuzzy backing, I used 3.5 yds Gray for the back (to match the straps) and 3.5 yds White for the top.
20 x 24 piece of clear .40 mil pvc sheeting to water resist the top.
2 yd Webbing for the handle and strap
2 plastic buckles
Velcro for the battery compartment.
5 AA NI-MH 1.2V 2300MA batteries.
6 AA cell holder with snap connection.
Cord w/9 V clip to 2.1MM x 5.5MM (+) center.
A push button canopy switch.
Jack to Jack connector 2.1MM x 5.5MM
Zap a Gap
Duck tape
A lighter
8 1" binding posts
silicone seam sealant
electric crimps
nut and bolt or spring for missing # battery
24 x 36 sheet of green 1/2" foam
8" of 2" white velcro

Then tools wise:
scissors and I like to use my electric cutter
Belt punch
sewing machine
rulers
Drill and bit for plexi holes
wire strippers for to add the switch to the electric rig.
Strong pins
a thimble
Spray mount

Step 1 Cut your vinyl and pvc window

I made this blanket roughly 80" x 92". I pieced the top in 3 sections.
The two largest measure 32 x 92, these follow the top and bottom and I filled in with two skinny pieces
@ 17" x 30 and set the pvc piece between them. This is based on 1/2 seam allowance, except for around the center pvc frame, where I will double up the seam allowance at 1 ".
Minus the pvc section, you'll want three pieces of grey vinyl cut and assemble as well, so get stitching!

Comments

[AnthonyProulxofPlasticPrinters]

Badass!

[goatgirly]

too bad we haven't got a place to picnic around here.

[karylnewman]

you can have a picnic anywhere. You have right to public space. Maybe - a rooftop, think base-jumping without the jump or a street parking spot.

[goatgirly]

My roof is slanted and there is no street parking spots. Sorry to be pessimistic but, there just isn't anywhere to have a picnic in my town.

[=SMART=]

Hey this is cool ! you are featured in the top 10 summer instructables :P wont the lights just attract flies in the dark?

[karylnewman]

hey thanks no bugs the light isn't so bright. this might be going into production soon! no need to DIY :(, but yay! I'll keep y'all posted.

[=SMART=]

Oh ok cool, Look forward to seeing it !!

[yourmominavolvo]

Um...looks cool, but won't it attract alot of bugs, using it at night?

[karylnewman]

nope, been tested no bugs flock, but the people do!

[kaishijinn]

You eat in the dark, then?

[karylnewman]

yep, dining in the near dark is just as fun as dining in the pitch dark.

[piper1234]

:P aah times chaging, led's for candles ; ) but the wind cant blow 'em off looks nice ; )

[Mfmalive]

(removed by author or community request)

[ewilhelm]

If you keep posting irrelevant videos in your comments, you will be banned. Please keep your comments appropriate.

[jongscx]

I really love it when sewing and technology are done together. It's like an old and new being melded thing. Also, I could just get regular plexi and hit it with some 1200 sand paper to get it to defuse, no? instead of getting the milk plex

[karylnewman]

Yeah me too. I actually tried sanded plex on this project, but the milk provided more diffusion, it just looked better.

[BlueFusion]

It's diffuse. Defuse refers to a bomb. However, that might work.

[BlueFusion]

Kewl. When I saw this, I had ideas for a different sort of thing using tiny surface mount LEDs and ultra flexible tracks all sealed inside two sheets of vinyl. You could then lay a semi translucent rug on top of it. This is the sort of thing people all over the world working on it, shows how many problems there are with it. Mainly to do with the sealing of it and the conductive tracks. Usually they talk about the whole thing being washable but if you had a rug / blanket on top and sealed it in vinyl I don't think that would be an issue. No I'm not going to build one, go ahead and steal my idea, y'all.

[5Volt]

Forte ! (That is: neat !) Ciao

[Elastometer]

This is the Mutts Nuts! We picnic, BBQ and practically live in the garden no matter what the weather is like. This will go great under the gazebo! Many thanks for sharing.

[ongissim]

You should try to integrate this project into the center! Good job on the instructable!

[karylnewman]

Yeah, trust me, I thought about it. But really, I didn't want to distract the other movie folks. For the non-movie 2.0 version, we'll have bluetooth patterning!

[LasVegas]

Great job! This is sweet!

[PR22]

Wow, awesome. Very romantic. I'm thinking about trying this, but slightly different. A larger table area and built in pillows so you can lay down.