Making a Holiday Card using Bare Paint

In this tutorial we will show you how to make a Holiday Greeting card with LEDs! To do this we will use some Bare Paint, a battery, and some surface mount LEDs.

To help you complete this project we've made all the component available to buy in the Card Mini-kit. Alternatively you can source them yourself via the links below.

Materials

Bare Paint
Brush
A4 Coloured Paper
Scissors
Glue Stick
Glue Gun
Pencil
Ruler

Components

To purchase the Mini-kit with all the components click here

Surface Mount LEDs UK: Farnell  / US: Digi-Key
3V Coin Cell Battery UK: Farnell / US: Digi-Key

STEP 1. Download and Print your Templates

Download the template for the card. In this tutorial we will be painting our circuit with a brush, however we have provided a template for you to silkscreen the cards as well if you like. For this tutorial you will need to print pages 1 & 3.

*Use page 2 if you're going to screen print the cards.

Holiday Card Template                        

STEP 2. Card body

Print page 3 of the template on a colored piece of paper. This will be the main body of the card. Once printed just fold it in four, making sure the text is on the inside as shown below.

STEP 3. Cut out your image

Select the card you want to make, and cut it out. In this tutorial we will be making the Christmas Tree.

STEP 4. Trace the Circuit with Bare Paint

When attaching the LED, make sure there is a gap for it to sit. Don't paint all the way through as this will cause a short circuit! Also, make sure to note the polarity of your LED so that you put the battery in the right direction. In this case I have put my positive (+) legs facing left.

STEP 5. Preparing the Battery

Select a piece of color paper and cut out  two strips. They should be approximately 1.5cm wide x 10cm long, and 1.5cm wide x 3cm long.Fold the larger of the two strips in half and set aside.

Take your 1.5cm x 3cm strip and cut two small slits into it. These should be approximately 1cm apart. Once cut, you should be able to stick the battery legs through these holes and turn the paper upside down so that they face upwards.

Using a brush, dab the legs of the battery with some Bare Paint. This will serve as an adhesive to keep the battery in place, as well as providing a contact/switch for our LED to light up.

Wait for a few minutes until the paint is dry. then using your glue gun, place a small drop of adhesive on the long strip of paper and stick the battery as shown above. **Note the direction that I've placed my battery in! The positive leg is by my thumb. Remember the polarity of your battery and LED have to match or else it won't light up!**

STEP 6. Attach the Battery to the Card

You should now have the three main parts for your card. The body, the circuit drawing with your LED, and your paper strip battery switch.

Use your glue stick to glue the image on to the body of the card.

Now take your battery strip, and place it over the bottom right corner. You will see that the two ends of the drawing should match up with the two painted dots on your battery paper. Make sure the LED lights up when the battery and the drawing make contact. Once this works, mark where the paper strip bends on the switch.

You should now unfold your card, and cut a slit into the paper. You should be able to insert your paper switch through this slit and create a folding tab which makes contact with the circuit when pushed down. This will work as a button to turn on your LED!

Fold your card back into four, and it should look like this from the inside.

STEP 7. Done!

Well done! You should now have a functioning card that lights up when you press your paper switch!

Now that you've made your first card you can try making the rest on your own! We have templates for Rudolph, a Snowflake and a Menorah. If you make your own design feel free to email it to us to info@bareconductive.com so we can post it on our site!

Check out our other  Tutorials here