Kiki's Delivery Service Puzzle Frame
19 Jan 2020
We bought this puzzle on one of our Japan trips. It's translucent, and is designed to be put in a window, or in a lit frame. They were selling the frames as well from the same vendor, but they were quite expensive and didn't look very good.
After seeing the DIY Perks video on making realistic looking lighting panels, I really wanted to do something similar, rather than just putting it in a window.
The puzzle is an odd size, and it also needs to be deep enough to accommodate all the required layers, as well as the LED strips. Finding something off the shelf was probably going to be too hard so I made one. It wasn't too difficult to get all the mitres lined up, though I did have to use my shooting board to get them all exact.
Next was putting in all the layers. I'm not exactly sure what each one is, but it went (in order from front to back, obviously)
- Puzzle
- diffuser sheet
- lens
- diffuser sheet
- thick acrylic with dots
- LED strip
- glossy card
- plywood backing
Overall the effect is quite convincing, and looks way better than just shoving some LEDs in the back. The colour temperature is probably slightly too cool, though the LEDs I got do have good CRI so it's quite pleasing to look at.
Don't throw out your old laptop/TV screens! Playing with the lens layers is fun, and there's a bunch of really useful materials in there.