11

FORGE

and dip into the glue mix before applying all over
the skull. Ensure it is fully covered, and apply two or
three layers for strength. It’s a good idea to leave the
skull 30 minutes to one hour between each layer to
dry. Then leave overnight for it to harden.
Once it’s dry, we need to decorate the skull. This
can be done with a final skin of paper using a printed
image of a skull, a technique called découpage.
An example skull image is available on Wikimedia
Commons: hsmag.cc/eBBMCv. Apply this in the
same way as the papier-mâché layers, by ripping the
picture into smaller pieces and sticking them onto
the skull. Use plain black paper for the eye sockets
and red paper for the bowl. An alternative would be
to paint or colour these with a permanent marker.
To give the skull a protective skin, it is coated with
shellac. The ‘button’ or ‘garnet’ colours work best.
It dries quickly and gives an antique appearance.
One coat should be sufficient. If you use a dedicated
brush for shellac, you can give it a quick rinse in
thinners before storage, and then a soak before the
next use.

GLOWING GEMSTONES
Select some acrylic gemstones of a suitable size
to fit into the eye sockets. The stick-on or stitch-
on type, that have a flat side, should be easiest to
use. The flat side is painted silver and helps reflect
the light. So that the light from the LED will shine
through, lightly sand the silver paint.
A reflector cone is formed from kitchen foil. To
ensure there is some overlap to join the cone, we
needed to draw our template slightly oversized.
Draw a 15 mm diameter circle, and a second circle

YOU’LL NEED

Newspaper

Small cardboard

box

Paper and card

Used tape rolls

38 mm masking

tape

PVA glue

French shellac

polish

2 × jewels

2 × 10 mm red

LED

2 × 220 Ω resistor

Kitchen foil

Hot glue

Adafruit Gemma

M0

Wire

Approx 30 cm of

screened wire

Crimp connectors

3 × AAA battery

box with JST

connector

2.5M nuts, bolts,

washers

Above

The reflector helps spread the light across the gemstone

The 38 mm masking

tape is best, as it is

not too wide and not

too narrow.

QUICK TIP

of 40 mm around that. Cut out the large circle and slit

the disk to the centre. Now cut out the inner circle.

Form the foil into a cone and wrap around a

10 mm LED. Tape this into place. If your gemstones

are not round, you may need to make some

adjustments to the shape of the cone. You can

do this by folding over the edges, pinching and

folding, or by cutting off the excess. Fill the cone

carefully with hot glue and stick the gemstone to

the top and leave to cool. Repeat with the other LED

and gemstone.

WIRES AND CRIMPS

You will need two lengths of different coloured

wire for each LED, which are long enough to pass

through the skull and out of the back. This will mean

you can connect the Gemma before sliding it back

into the box. Crimp one wire to each leg of the

Far left

A solid base for the

skull and padding

to shape

Left

Skull shape formed

from tape and card