Decorate your card for someone you love and find exactly the right place on the front of your card where you’d like your LED to light up!

Craft Materials needed:

Paper
Scissors
Card-stock
Card decorating materials (whatever you want!)

Creative Circuit Materials:

Coin cell battery
LED
Copper tape

Step 1: Find Positive and Negative Leg of LED!

Lay down your LED and locate the positive (longer) leg of and negative (shorter) leg of the LED.

TIP: once you identify the positive leg, mark it with a sharpie or colored nail polish so when you separate the LED legs you can tell them apart.

Step 2: Poke a Hole for the LED

Poke a hole in your card and poke the LED top through. You'll want the top of your LED (the part that lights up) to be on the side of the card that you'll be decorating.

Step 3: Let's Cut Some Card Stock!

Grab your card-stock (or any thick-cut paper you have handy).

Cut a rectangle out of card stock or thick paper, fold it over, and cut a square through the center - you’ll be putting your battery in the center.

Step 4: Add Some Copper Tape!

Lengthen the legs of your LED with copper tape. The tape extending from the positive leg should be double sided (non-adhesive/ not sticky). Make double sided- copper tape by just putting two pieces of tape together with adhesive sides touching.

Step 5: Place the Battery Inside of the Cardboard Holder!

Place coin cell battery in paper holder and make sure the negative side faces down and touches the copper tape coming from the negative side of the LED and make sure the positive side of the battery faces up. Just remember negative-to-negative and positive-to-positive.

Step 6: Let's Test It!

Push the copper tape from the positive side of the LED on the positive side of the battery. When you push the copper tape on the positive side of the LED, the LED should light up.

Troubleshooting: If the LED doesn’t light up, make sure the positive side of the battery is connecting to the positive side of the LED and vice versa. Also, make sure enough of the battery is exposed through the cardboard to connect to the copper tape on both the negative and positive sides.

Once everything is working and your LED is lighting up when you push, staple the cardboard down.

Step 7: Decorate the Switch!

Decorate the top of your LED switch. We wrote “Press Me” in a paper heart and lightly glued it to the cardboard, but you can write whatever you want!

Be careful to not apply too much adhesive on the decoration over the switch as it might get between the copper tape and the battery and interfere with the electricity.

Give your card to someone you love and explain to them that you just made an awesome card with a paper switch!