LED Jewelry
Here is a cool way to spunk up some old earrings or make new ones with LED (Light Emitting Diode) technology. The idea behind LED jewelry is simple. You connect the two sides of a battery to the two poles of the LED piece, and it lights up. While commercially made LED jewelry usually has a tiny circuit board with a battery-mounting clip, it is quite simple to construct something similar with a quick trip to Radio Shack and this easy tutorial from Jamie Faye Fenton
Jamie uses the CR1025 battery from Radio Shack that measures 3/8” in diameter and just over 1/8” thick. She used a ¼-inch diameter plastic heat shrink tubing cut to 3/8” in length and threaded an earring hoop through the tubing. The Battery is then pressed into the tubing and the LED poles are inserted with one pole contacting each side of the battery. You have to make sure that the LED poles match up to the poles of the battery so that the negative meets the positive on both sides. If the LED does not light up try turning it around.
There are other designs on Jamie’s site for you to try, or you can be creative and make your own. Tubing is available in many colors and LEDs can come in multi-colors or can flash automatically. While LEDs vary in their running length, on average they run over 3 hours straight without dimming.
