Infinity Gauntlet - Assembly & Completion

Alright, so after you have the LEDs wired up and ready to go you're ready for the next steps.  I don't have many pictures of this because I did it all in less than 24 hours to make sure I had it ready and wrapped in time for Christmas, but I'll try to walk you guys through the steps the best I can.

Now that you have your rivets, paper prototype, and LEDs ready to go the next step is to actually assemble the gauntlet using your metal....right?  Nope!  I did it with poster board and ArtEmboss Aluminum!  I don't have any pictures of a few of my products/materials I used for this process so I'm going to link them up here below.

• Poster board (.50 at Dollar Tree)
• Scissors
• Gauntlet Template
• Xacto blade
• Bag of assorted oval acrylic gems* 
• Hot glue sticks & hot glue gun
• Snap Fasteners
• Thin elastic cord

*Note*: For the Acrylic Gems I ended up buying 2 bags in store.  As the description in the link says, the bag includes assorted colors so you don't know what you'll end up with.  Purple was very hard to find so I sat there in the store trying to flip the gems around in the bag until I could get a clear view of what color they were.  I ended up buying 2 bags because 1 had purple and 1 had red.  

Also, since there is no yellow gem in that pack, I used a yellow fabric for the back of the white gem and a yellow highlighter....It'll be our little secret, okay?  I think yellow nail polish could have worked too.  The backside of the gems are silver metallic which I sanded off with sand paper.  I probably didn't need to do that since the LEDs are so bright they could have shown right through it, but I like how it turned out.

Infinity Gauntlet - LED wiring

I'm sure this is the moment you've all been waiting for!  LED wiring for the Infinity Gauntlet.  First off I want to give a big thanks to my friend Ron for helping me clean up the LEDs.  And also for teaching me about lemons!  I'll get more to that later.  Before I start with the step by step tutorial, I have to let everyone know that going into this project I had no knowledge LEDs, resistors, wiring, etc except what I have learned and forgotten from high school and college.  So even if you have no knowledge of wiring up LEDs, I'm hoping that with this tutorial, safety, and a little bit of practice, you too can have LEDs to light up your infinity gauntlet.

What you'll need (not all items pictured):

• Soldering Tool Kit (Should have Iron, soldering wire at minimum)
• 6 white LEDs (Radio Shack #276-0320)
• 6 resistors (160-Ohm 1/4 Watt Carbon Film Resistors)  They come in a 5 pack...
• 1 AAA qty4 holder with on/off switch included
• Lemon juice aka Citric Acid Flux
• Wire cutters
• Hookup Wires (Red - Positive & Black - Negative)

Optional

• Electrical tape
• Heat Shrinkable Wire Wrap (I highly recommend this since it helps keeps the wires clean)
• Wire Stripper/Crimper

I basically walked into Radio Shack and told them what I was trying to do and how many LEDs I needed.  The associate was really helpful and at the same time not.  He was able to put my request into his little wizard and it popped out the necessary items I need, and the circuit it should be in, but beyond that he wasn't much help.

Here are the Youtube videos that I believe will be helpful for you:
Series and Parallel Circuits (I didn't watch this until I messed up the circuit so make sure you watch this first!)
LED Tutorial - Part 1
How and WHY to Solder Correctly

DIY Spray Painting for Rivets (or any small objects)

Happy New Year's Eve!  So for the next couple of post I'm probably going to mix it up with the Infinity Gauntlet building post & other random posts so that I don't bore everyone isn't interested in the Infinity Gauntlet building.  My boyfriend is having a New Year's Day board game get together tomorrow at his house and I decided it'll be the perfect opportunity to whip up some pinspired decoration and decorate with a Game Night theme so those blog post will also be scattered throughout the next couple of post.

For today's post I'm going to start out with a simple yet effective pin I saw (45 weeks ago!) on Pintrest but finally had a chance to try it out.  The original pin was for spray painting pinto beans for decorations  and when it came time to paint the rivets gold (since I couldn't find any cheap gold ones anywhere else) I knew this method would be perfect to paint the rivets....Or at least I had to try the method out since it seemed so simple - and it was!

Pin Rating: 4.5 (I'm sure it would have been a 5 if I was actually using pinto beans)

• Box
• Metallic Gold Spray paint
• Pack of 3/8" Nickel Rivets 
• Pack of 1/4" Nickel Rivets
• Mask or handkerchief to wear while painting

I bought everything, except the box, at Hobby Lobby.  I really wanted to look and feel the rivets for myself to test out the size.  You'll need the 1/4" rivets for the spots where you rivet two plates together (and only 2 plates). The 3/8" rivets are for spots where you need more reach to rivet through the glove and the plates of the gauntlet.  Note: Not all spots that you rivet through the glove will require the longer rivet.

What's nice is that they packaged the top and bottom pieces separately.

Sneak Peak of my Xmas Crafting Gifts

Happy Holidays everyone!  I hope everyone is enjoying some time off and spending it with family and friends.  This year my family celebrated Christmas a little early so it feels nice to be done with all my Christmas shopping and crafting already.  Granted it was a mad rush to finish all the projects in time since I was pretty ambitious, but it was well worth it!  Since tomorrow is Christmas I'm making today's blog post a little short so I can go back to relaxing, but I did want to provide you with a sneak peak of 2 of my bigger projects I did last week.  These aren't items that you can find on Pintrest but hopefully you will be inspired to pin them and try them out for yourself!

For my brother's girlfriend I made her a felt plushie R2D2 with a head that can swivel!

For my boyfriend I made him a working Infinity Gauntlet.  For those that don't know what that is, check it out by clicking the Wikipedia link below.  Credit for the original gauntlet design goes to: David J. Guyton.  I purchased his template and made some slight adjustments so that I can add the gems to the gauntlet.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia 

Blog post for this Wednesday & Friday will be for R2D2 plushie.  Next week I will blog about the Infinity Gauntlet.  Stay tuned for some serious crafting updates!