Introduction: Express Christmas Stars
In our recent trip to Shenzhen Maker Faire I bought a Chibi Lights Kit, basically it consist of 12 LED stickers, it comes with a copper foil tape with adhesive on the back so you just tape the LED with the copper, add a battery and that's all. The LED will turn on.
Is Christmas in a few days and we had zero Christmas ornaments on our apartment, We moved to Beijing almost 4 months ago and Christmas in Beijing is not so popular, you can find Christmas ornaments but the ones we found were expensive so I decided to make something with the Chibi Lights for Christmas.
The idea is simple:
1. You make a star with a sheet of paper
2. Make a small hole in the center of the star
3. Stick the led to the center and add a battery.
We didn't wanted the stars always on, so this model of stars only turns on when you push it.
You will need:
-A squared sheet of paper (I used a 12x12cm withe paper sheet)
-Chibi Lights leds and cooper foil tape
-CR2032 battery
-Scissor
-Transparent adhesive tape
Step 1: Step 1. Make a Star With a Sheet of Paper
This is the first origami star I ever made, is a 4 points ninja like star and is really easy to make. This are the steps.
You begin with a square paper, you can use color paper or whatever paper you want. Fold it in half, unfold and cut.
Fold each half in half again and fold the corners as you can see on the picture. Notice that I first folded the upper corner to the right and the other corner to the left on the first paper. On the second paper I folded the upper corner to the left and the other to the right. It is important to fold this way, otherwise the star will not have the desired shape.
Then fold one of the extremes of the paper like if you were making a triangle as you can see on the picture. Fold the other extreme on the opposite direction and do the same with the other paper. You will notice that both papers have one flat side and the other side with a diagonal created by the folds
Put the flat sides together. We are almost done!
Now you just have to put the corners inside the big triangles and that's all!
Step 2: Make a Small Hole in the Center of the Star
I marked a small point in the center of the star. Then you just unfold the star and cut on the marks.
Step 3: Stick the Led to the Center and Add a Battery.
Stick the LED in the center so you can see it through the small hole you made. Peel a small part of the cooper foil tape and stick it to the positive extreme. Do the same for the negative extreme. Make a little mark on the back of the cooper tape so you know which is the negative or positive extreme.
The copper foil tape has a paper base, I only exposed the adhesive on the parts I was going to use, for example, the part I used to stick to the led and the parts I used to stick to the battery. Also I used transparent adhesive tape to wrap the foil tape (not in the parts that need to be in contact with the battery) in order to make it stronger and that the copper does not separate from the base.
In this step I added some color to my star because I was using withe paper... you can use color paper from the beginning.
After forming the star again you just have to stick the cooper tape to star and then stick the battery (I used transparent adhesive tape). It is also a good idea to stick the cooper tape to the battery to be sure they are in contact.
Now stick the other part of the cooper tape over the battery leaving a small space between the tape and the battery so the led is not always on but only when you push the star and the copper tape makes contact with the battery. You can stick some transparent adhesive tape to the battery leaving only the center exposed so the upper cooper tape can only make contact in that place when pushed and turn the led on.
Step 4: Final Comments
I made another 2 star, drew a Christmas tree and stick it all to the wall... Now we have Christmas tree with stars and all!
The star above the tree is different from the one in this Instructable but you can find the origami steps in here:
You can follow the same steps then.
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To take the photo I made the leds on the stars to stay on but in reality they only turn on when you push them.
I used Chibi Lights but you can make exactly the same with normal leds, a resistor and cooper cable... and a CR2032 battery.