Sixth Street Sundries: The Ton and Chibitronics Blog Hop!

Thursday, June 30, 2016

The Ton and Chibitronics Blog Hop!

Good Morning! Welcome to the Blog Hop for The Ton's collaboration with Chibitronics! You should have arrived from Eunji's blog and your next stop is Mayline's blog.

My hubby is an electrician. He is pretty much awesome with anything with wires and circuits and lights... And I most certainly am not. I will be the first to admit that I am a bit of a dunce when it comes to anything electronic... My smart phone is most certainly smarter than I. (I know, I know, I'm a milennial, so I"m supposed to be more capable than this with my electronics.) So when the collaboration between The Ton and Chibitronics was announced to the Design Team, I was just a tiny bit (ahem, A LOT) nervous that I wouldn't be able to figure it out. I thought to myself "oh, I will just ask my electrician hubster for help if I need to," which helped me relax quite a bit. BUT! I just sat down with the handbook that comes in the Chibitronics Starter Kit, watched a few videos, and just played with it, and I was able to figure it out all by my lonesome. Yippee! It sounds so intimidating, but the manual really breaks down the technical terminology into useable bits that actually make sense. I am all for dumbing things down in when it comes to technology LOL!

Anyway, my project for the collaboration is one that I've had in my head (albeit without the nifty little lights) since the Bokeh Burst: Star was released a few months ago. You saw my bokeh card with the Sparklers Alpha from the release countdown a couple of weeks ago... this card uses the same technique. I started by heat embossing my sentiment using silver embossing powder, then blending Soft Orchid, Plum Wine, and Grape Crush inks on an A2 panel of card stock. After getting the blending the way I wanted it, I used the solid circles from Bokeh Burst: Round to create the bokeh effect by stamping random circles in all three shades of purple, plus a few stamped with Delicata Silver ink. I used that fabulous star image and stamped it in three spots using silver Delicata ink to create a visual triangle around the sentiment. I knew that I wanted my lights to be in the center of the stars, so I poked three holes in the center of the stars and stopped messing with my card front before I messed it up. (Really, I needed to stop procrastinating and get to the technical part of the project...)

I created the circuitry based on the instructions found in the book that comes with the Starter Kit. I used the holes in the front panel as a guide to determine my placement of the LED lights. It took a couple of practice tries, but I finally got the copper tape in the right spots to create my circuits! The key (for me anyway) was that I needed to keep my tape closer together to make certain that the LED lights could touch the positive and negative tapes on both top and bottom of the LED stickers. After I made certain that the lights would actually light (YESSSS!), I cut up some fun foam to use to pop up the card base so the battery wouldn't be an unsightly lump at the bottom of the card haha.

The final step was to carefully place the card front over the LED stickers and pray that I had eyeballed them well enough that all three would fit. (YESSS again!)

The finished product with the lights on:

And with the lights off:

Isn't it so awesome? It kinda twinkles! Can you imagine this with a Christmas card? Gah! I was so intimidated, but now I can't stop thinking of new ways to use these fabulous little lights! (And I don't even need to bug my hubby to help me haha!)

So, have you tried any Chibitronics yet? They seem so intimidating, but I promise, if I, a technologically inept milennial can figure it out in only ONE naptime, you absolutely can figure it out!!! Here are the rest of the hop stops:

Emily (that's me!)

Giveaway - One starter kit to a lucky commenter. To qualify, you must leave a comment on each blog. Comment period will end on Saturday, July 2 at 11:59 pm EST

I'm sure you are going to have an absolute blast checking out all of these fun projects! Thanks for dropping by! Be sure to leave a comment on each blog for your chance to win one of these super fun kits! :)