You Really Are … Tough As Nails

Hi Folks! Kelly Griglione here with a card that illuminates several bottles of glamorous nail polish, and part of the sentiment too! I’d love to show you how it was constructed …

I stamped all the bottles of nail polish from the Essentials by Ellen set Make It Beautiful on vellum and cut them out. Since I wanted the vellum to be illuminated, I had to cut out the shape of the bottles from the gray card panel so the light from the card base could pass through. Next, I traced through the holes in the gray panel so I could tell exactly where the lights should be placed on the card base. The copper tape makes the circuit, which will be turned on and off by a the switch mechanism that Eiko developed.

Before I go any further, I always like to slide the switch to the on position at this point to make sure the lights turn on. To be honest, I keep the switch turned on throughout this whole step so I can immediately see if each LED works correctly. It’s a good thing I do this, since the first LED didn’t turn on right away. It was a silly mistake, as I had the positive side of the LED on the negative copper tape. So I was able to quickly correct this before adhering the remaining 5 LEDs which would have needed to be figured out and corrected.

Once all the circuitry is in place, I fill all the bottles with the colored nail polish … by adhering another piece of colored vellum on top of the bottle! For the third, pink bottle, I only “filled” it half way. I also hid a message underneath by embossing “tough as nails” in white. Once this is lit from below, the message will stand out.

Here I’ve added the black foam tape to the card base, as well as the long switch cover to the switch mechanism.

The card looks pretty neat when it’s not lit, with all the touches of metallic gold on the bottles and sentiment.

Then when the switch is turned on, the nail polish bottles light up!

 

I used a red light for the bottom of the red and pink nail polishes, and a blue light for the bottom of the purple nail polish. For the top of the nail polishes I used white LEDs. In hind sight, I wish I would have left the white lights off the first two nail polishes, the full red and purple bottles. That way, the last, pink nail polish with the hidden message would stand out brighter than the rest. The white light on this bottle also highlights the empty top of the bottle.

 

In the spirit of full disclosure, I also realized a big mistake after I finished the card … have you figured it out yet?

The switch is actually constructed BACKWARDS! Pulling the switch out turns OFF the card, and pushing the switch back in turns ON the card. Whoops!! So my next step will be to move the position of the copper tape. Just keeping it real here, folks : )

Here’s a quick video for you to get a better idea of what it looks like!

Thanks so much for looking!
– Kelly

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