A little note: I had more than one attempt in this. The first design was a bit too small, so I changed the size to better fit the circuit. I also did not originally plan the extra back bit, because I did not take the pin into account. In terms of decoration design, the main change was that I added an extra triangle on top of the tree because I thought it looked better.

Having failed my first attempt, I made notes on what I did wrong and made changes to the design. First, and most important: since my pin design was too small, I made it bigger so I could fit the battery holder AND the LEDs without the circuit getting tangled and short-circuit itself (the battery holder doesn’t look too big but when you look at my pin in comparison, it’s chunky). This was easy, but I decided not to increase the size of the tree, so I could have extra space on the sides if I needed it (this was a good decision). Sewing the circuit while accounting for the pin was more challenging. I cut an extra thin sheet of light-brownish felt and cut out parts for the battery holder. I planned to have the LEDs facing inside, so the light shines through the thick felt better (I ended up poking some holes in the thick felt because it was still hard), while the battery holder ATTATCHED to the thick felt. Sewing the LEDs onto the new thin sheet of felt was challenging, but I madde it work eventually. This is what it looked like:

(In the process of sewing the circuit)

My next step was to perfect the design. I had sewn in the LEDs, but I realized that the battery holder limited the yellow star LED to nearly the edge of the pin. If you remember, I added an extra triangle on top of the tree. The main reason was to adapt to my mistake, and the second reason was that it looked better than the original flat-topped tree. This is the (mostly) finished tree design below:

Front design

Back design

Having needed to adapt to the pin on the back (in order for the pin to actually, you know, be a pin), I tried sewing it to the very top, right next to the top LED, although I forgot one thing: the pin was metal. Metal, when in contact with conductive materials (in this case, conductive string from the circuit), may short-circuit the circuits and stop working. This is what happened to the top LED, and since I connected the circuit of the first LED with the second LED in order to make it a parallel circuit, all the LEDs stopped working. I realized my problem and just put a small piece of felt between the pin and the conductive thread, and, voila. The LEDs were working fine. I could switch it on and off as I liked. Here’s a picture:

(It may be a little unclear because of the light background, my workplace being in front of a window, but you can faintly see the two LEDs.)

Now, you may realize that I didn’t sew in my initials yet.

 

And you’d be right. (LOL)

 

I noticed this and used (slightly messy?) backstitch on the bottom-left corner to fix the problem.

I SWEAR IT’S CLEARER IN PERSON

 

What do you think?