The Lights Project - Carousel

Have you met Katie? 

Katie is the Commander in Chief of Matsutake Heavy Industries. By "Heavy Industries", she means tons of crafting and general nonsense and occasional cooking a raw potato or burning some cookies. She's not really good at the blissed out domestic thing (or so she says). But she does do a ton of crafting. And she writes for Ohdeedoh!

Ahem. Crafting. Feast your eyes:

(click on each photo to take you to the individual posts)

And Katie is funny. Boy, is she funny. Nobody makes me giggle like Katie. You have to read about her personal assistant, Ms Norwood. And her love for power tools. And inventing entirely new crafts. And styrofoam heads. She blows me away again and again with her talent, her impeccable taste, her unmatchable originality and her wit. Oh, her wit.

But I must shut up already and let you meet her (lucky you) and the Very Cool Thing she made. Incidentally, Katie has been dabbling in lights long before this series was even a whisper of an idea. When I asked her to join the party - whaddya know - she already had a string of battery-operated lights. Rainbowy. That she bought from Target. And look what she did with it!

She made a carousel! With music. And animals -

a multicolored musical menagerie! 

Here's Katie!

1. Obtain a string of LED lights, a papier mache box, some plastic animals, and a music box movement from here.

2. Cut as many holes in the lid of the box as you have lights. Also cut a rectangle out so you can access the light switch.

3. Drill holes in the animals. Do not let small children see you do this. As I drilled the polar bear, my daughter grabbed the other two animals and ran away with them to save them from their gruesome destiny.

4. Stick dowels through animals. 

Stick dowel ends into box. Tape lights into place. Superglue music box to bottom.

5. Cut a cone of cardstock to make a lid to hide the cords.

6. Decorate!

Lights and sound. Awesome just got redefined! Thank you, Katie!


Karin will be here tomorrow - see you then!