Difficulty Level: Easy

No soldering is required to make the simple circuit we're creating today.

Materials and Tools

Here is a list of all the materials and tools you’ll need:

LED

Coin Cell Battery - 12mm (CR1225)

Glue

Scissors

Decorating Materials - markers, paints, glitter, confetti, and whatever else you want to add to you card!

Step 1: Decorate Your Card!

Go ahead and decorate your card. We left space at the bottom to add a UFO that will light-up when pressed. We made this card for a friend that loves satellites, aliens, and all things interplanetary.

Think about your friends, what kinds of details can you add to make their card super special?

Step 2: Gather LED, Battery, Paper, LED, and Glue

Grab your card, a piece of construction paper, one LED, a Coin Cell battery and glue. These are the materials you'll need to make your paper switch that will turn your LED on when pressed.

We made a little UFO and placed it where we eventually want it to go, but we haven't glued it down yet because we're going to eventually hide our battery underneath.

Step 3: Create Your Battery Holder

Cut a piece of thick construction paper into a rectangle about 2 inches by 1 inch. Fold it around the battery to make sure it covers the battery. Then take the battery out and cut out a square through the center. Refer to the image for guidance.

Step 4: Add the LED

Electricity Exercise: Take your LED and your battery. When circuit-crafting, it's important to know that electricity needs to flow from the positive side of the battery to the positive side of the LED and vice versa. Find the positive (longer) leg of the LED and touch it to the positive side of the battery. Do the same with the negative (shorter) side of the LED and negative side of the battery. Your LED should light up!

Now that you've made your battery holder out of paper, we're going to add the LED. The paper battery holder will create space between the LED and the battery so that when you lightly squeeze the LED legs, they'll touch the battery and you will complete your circuit, meaning your LED with light up!

TIP: We find that having the longer leg of the LED touching the positive side of the battery under the paper battery holder, and having the negative leg halfway out of the battery holder works best. There is no perfect way to do this, just play with the battery holder and the LED until you make a connection that lights up when you squeeze the center of the battery.

Step 5: Gently Glue Battery Holder

Now that you have an LED that lights up when you press the center of your paper switch, you'll want to delicately add some glue to hold everything together. Add glue around the edges of the paper switch to make sure the LED stays in place.

TIP: Less is more here. If you add too much glue, like hot glue, you run the risk of blocking the flow of electricity from the LED to the battery.

Step 6: Decorate the Paper Switch

You're almost done! All you need to do to complete your super sweet light-up Valentine card, is to decorate and glue down your paper switch.

We added a little UFO to cover the paper switch for our Valentine card by gently gluing the spaceship on top of our paper switch and then gluing the newly decorate switch down on the card.

Once you've down that, test it again to make sure your LED still lights up when pressed.

TIP: Try not to add too much paper (or any other) decoration on top of your switch. That might make it hard to press the LED legs to the battery, meaning your LED won't light up easily.