Adding light to your wooden craft projects can highlight their craftsmanship.
You can draw attention to wood's texture and beauty by incorporating lights into your wooden crafts. When selecting a light source, take safety into consideration as well as aesthetics. With many types of lamps available, you can select from a range of light sources, each with a different profile of energy consumption, light quality and heat produced. Does this Spark an idea?
Lights for Dollhouses
Adding electrical lights to a dollhouse is a somewhat delicate operation. Besides the many fine pieces of wood that comprise the walls and floors, the typical dollhouse contains many small pieces of cloth and other materials. If your dollhouse or dollhouse building kit comes with built-in wiring, only use the light bulbs specified in the manufacturer's or woodworking instructions. If you're building the dollhouse yourself, install the lighting after you assemble the basic dollhouse structure, but before you add furniture, paint, curtains, carpet or any other details. You can find tiny fluorescent or incandescent light bulbs specially designed for using in dollhouses. The average dollhouse light bulb burns for around 10,000 hours.
Lights for Holiday Crafts
Miniature Christmas lights add a subtle glow to a wooden creche scene or a row of miniature Victorian houses dressed up for the holidays. If you combine wooden crafts with artificial or real wreaths or boughs of seasonal plants, make sure that any hot-burning incandescent bulbs are not in continuous contact with any flammable materials, including the wooden elements themselves, as well as any of the trimmings. For an elegant centerpiece, you can weave a few loops of holiday lights around wooden crafts, such as carved Santas. Around Halloween, carve a long-lasting pumpkin out of wood and use a LED tea light to illuminate it. Using LED technology will offer a cooler and safer alternative to incandescent light bulbs.
Lights for Wooden Lamps
For a simple and attractive craft project, make a lamp out of wood. Make the structure safe by using cool-burning lights, such as LED or compact fluorescent light bulbs, and by keeping all wooden elements away from direct contact with the light bulbs themselves. Draw inspiration from the Japanese and make a delicate Zen-style frame, using strips of wood to create a cube or rectangular cage-like structure. You'll need minimal supplies and effort for a project with a professional-looking grace. For a lantern-like effect, line the inside of the wooden frame with translucent rice paper or a light-colored paper with an interesting pattern or texture.
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