Category: Plush Night Light

This nightlight was primarily made for myself and others who enjoy the cute and humorous character that is gudetama. As you can see, I have used the LEDs to highlight the most important feature of gudetama – his derrière. He also has a heart tramp stamp because he has class!!! The plush provides a warm and comfortable tactile experience as well as some humour every time you look at it!

Material + Parts

• 2 White LEDS
• 2 100 Ohm Resitors
• Battery pack with switch
• 3 AAA Batteries
• Shrink Tube
• 2 types of fabric: white (stretchy) and orange (textured and transparent)
• Sewing Needle and Thread
• Cotton Stuffing

My Journey

Everything about this journey was new. I used a soldering iron, sewing machine, hand sewing techniques, and created something I am really happy with!

There were a lot of surprises. I was first worried that the circuit portion of this assignment was going to be the most difficult, but surprisingly I found that the sewing and putting my pattern together took the most mental acrobatics.

If I had more time to work on this project, I would want to make the buttocks portion a bit cleaner by refining refine the sewing and shape.

Circuit

Process Images

Cell Brooch

-Decorative Brooch

-Inspired by Kathleen Ryan

– Mystery Vibe

Material:

1. Thread and Needle
2. Battery Pack
3. Pink and Blue LEDs
4. Resistors
5. Skickers
6. Fabric
7. Electrical Heating Tubes

Circuit diagram

I forgot to take the process image. Soldering is challenging, If I have more time to do it, I will try different fabrics and accessories. Or make more as a collection.

This is a sad blob of seal that I made with two different colors of lighting inside the stuffings. The purpose of this plush is for wrist rest when using computers. Two of the challenges that I ran into during this project were soldering the wires (one of the wires snapped and I had to re-solder it) and closing the stitches as I was handsewing throughout the entire project.

The lights are positioned where the wrist would be placed, so it’s like giving a flashy feeling when placing your wrist on that particular area.

Video: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HCo0_MU1U_glzWJ4duK48Z9exYk7RvvZ/view?usp=sharing

Circuit:

Mishmish the Magic Duck is a plush night light of a round little duckling with warm lustrous cheeks. Mishmish’s appearance is based on a childhood stuffed duck toy that brought a lot of comfort in the first few weeks I slept alone (around 4 years of age). I made Mishmish with this experience in mind. I wanted Mishmish to help kids in the developmental phase of initial self-soothing, where they have to sleep without their parents through the entire night. It is a very big change and the presence of comfort and warmth in the form of a stuffed toy can really help with their adjustment.

I tried to make Mishmish as soft and as friendly as possible, therefore I went with using felt for its body, beak, and feet. I used fabric marker for the eyes and added leather components for the rear pockets. 2 yellow LEDs are placed in the cheeks, they were soldered into a parallel circuit and connected to a 5V battery pack.

This project was honestly quite a bit of fun! I got to try out a lot of stuff that I’ve never done before. While I’ve soldered and sewn in the past, they weren’t for projects of this nature at all! I’ve done a lot of circuitboard soldering and leather sewing so they were somewhat adjacent to the skills required for this project. As a result, I wanted to play it a bit safe and so I scoped accordingly. Truth be told I was actually impressed with how I scoped and budgeted my working hours. I was left with a good stretch of time for problem solving anything that wasn’t quite working.

If I had more time to work on my project I would definitely redo the leather components with better material and more care. I was quite careless with how I made these leather parts because I saw them as tertiary, however I think if Mishmish gets some really nice leather doodads, it would give off even more of a warm and homey feeling.

Plush Night Light

This is a luminous jellyfish earring that can be used at parties and music festivals. Wearing jellyfish earrings can be noticed in the dark. For instance, it’s easy for people to get lost at raves, so if you and your companions were separated by the crowd, the luminous jellyfish earrings can help you and your friends to find each other.

I had originally intended to dye the cloth to resemble a jellyfish’s tentacles, but I later changed my mind and decided to use wool fabrics for the tentacles. I have used a sewing machine a year ago but I wasted a lot of thread. Thus, I made the decision to sew my plushy by hand. I discovered that it was difficult to hand-seal the fabric’s edges, so I tried a few various stitches until I finally kept the polyester inside of the plushy.

One of the challenges was taking pictures, because my cat kept wanting to play with my jellyfish earrings.

If I had time I would add more embroideries to the tentacles.

The three initial ideas for my plush night light is

1) A night light that looks like the pet animal they lost

2) A desk buddy with a message

3) Calming Sensory Plush Night Light designed specifically for children with autism

I am still confused about what type of sensory experience should the plush toy be projecting. Should it be a night light that switches on and off when touched or the night light projects this pattern of light or stars through a screen?

The idea that I am gravitating towards the most is a night light that is designed for children with autism.

After ideating a few of the things my childhood self would love, I narrowed down on the ladybird for it was the easiest to hold and as a child I loved the bright colors. I think it can be hung next to the bed, like a real lady bird or on the bedside table. I wonder if we are able to even put a device in so that it can talk to the child or tell bedtime stories. In may opinion, that would be great.

Fun fact : As a child when I learnt to pick up a ladybird in my hand, I was obsessed. One day, my brother and I, collected 10-15 ladybirds in a jar and then released them in our bedroom. We shut all doors so they had no escape. Sadly, they started to die by the morning so we released them into their natural habitat. I loved this experience so much that in 4th grade, I painted my ceiling fan and wardrobe with ladybirds. My parent’s have changed houses over the years, they have always carried these fan blades along, though the painted center has changed.

So, I decided to make this ladybird for childhood Yukti.

To make this, I intend to have the LEDs in the 6 black polka dots.

To realize my idea, I bought two types of fabric that I want to cut and layer the top with. A sheer black that is doing to be an under layer for the top of the ladybird and an almost opaque thick furry red layer of fabric. I also intend to make the back with the tick fabric. I also bought some buttons for the eyes.

KPIs: Pre stitch these back sheer holes and then stitch the whole ladybird. I also want to make sure I get a clean thickness on the overall shape.

I’m excited!

I want to create a ghost toy for kids. At night, they can hold the ghost toy to go to the toilet. Giving them a hugging ghost toy will make them more comfortable with the ghost concept. Doing so may increase the chance for them to go to the toilet by themself.

The eyes will be led and can be used as a flashlight.

This fabric is soft which is pretty friendly for kids to hold.