Glowing Crystal Garden
A magical crystal garden to purify And light any space
This Crystal garden was a fun little day project I built with design/direction from Carol Chen. Inspired by the crystal garden tables at the Wild Unknown's shop in Portland Oregon.
The Materials:
— Hexagonal wooden box
— A selection of crystals (as clear as possible)
— A bag of rocks to fill in around crystals
— 1/8” thick frosted acrylic (cut in hexagonal shape to fit inside box)
— SP105E Magic Controller LED Controller
— A couple strips of WS2812b LEDs
— A couple strips of 3 conductor 18awg wire
— A DC barrel jack with 5” wires
— 3 x #10 machine screws (length depends on box depth)
The Build
The hexagonal box was custom made to Carol's spec in the Ukraine by an Etsy artist named WoodenStuffCrafts. We measured the internal dimensions of the box, printed a stencil of it and had it cut out of frosted acrylic at Tap Plastics in SF. Then put some screws in to act as stabilizers and a couple little nylon hex standoffs to act as pull tabs. I got the handy little LED controller off amazon for $20, which is pretty cool because it can be controlled over bluetooth with an iPhone app. Plus it works with a ton of different LED chipsets. It’s great for any quick and simple LED build no matter what LEDs you have lying around. I used some spare WS2812 of course ;)
Once it was built, Carol arranged the crystals and filled in around them with black pebbles to block the light from bleeding through and voila! A cute little light-up crystal garden that sits in our living room. Would be great as a nightlight for a kids room, a perfect addition to any shrine, or simply to add a little mystical ambiance to any space.