**A DIY Guide to Creating a Rustic LED Crystal Tower**

One thing to keep in mind when working with twine is that it is flammable when exposed to a naked flame, but as this project is low power and uses very little heat, I am personally happy with its safety for my own use. However, I highly suggest soaking the twine in flame retardant before plating it together, even though this may not be necessary.

Instead of going straight to the Tower, our special cable will be attached to a small block of wood. This is because the Twine itself being glued to the wood for strength as this will be leaning on the wall and needs something to rest on. In my case, it's just two PCB pillars that I glued in place with the twine attached to them.

The final thing to do is get two more lengths of enameled copper wire, thicker stuff this time, and use some sandpaper on their ends to strip off some of the enamel. These sections can be made into loops and then solder added to bond them together. Now, remember those holes we made beneath the power Lanes right at the start of this project? Well, we can make use of them now by clamping our enameled wire Loops down onto them using screws. Make note of the polarity though as the lane with the red wires going to it is positive and the one with the black wires going to it is negative.

Both of these enameled wires can now be threaded through some holes on the Block and looped around to the back where they too can be clamped underneath the screws. Don't forget to remove the enamel on these ends too though, so that they make electrical contact. By now, the epoxy for the selenite Tower should have cured, and it's time to mount the whole thing onto the wall.

The Block too can be held in place directly underneath using a nail and will provide a bit of tension to the copper wire to keep it straight. This means that our rustic looking power cable goes to the block which in turn directs the electricity through the enameled copper wires straight up to the power lanes for the LED controllers.

Before we turn this on for the first time, there is one last step left before it's complete. As you saw in the concept, there was some Greenery around the base of the Crystal Tower and to recreate this, we'll need a selection of dried Moss type plants. These can simply be glued in place in a natural looking formation. I had mine bunch over one side a bit and hang off the edge to make it look like some kind of Ivy or Vines.

This final touch adds a lot to the final look and I hope you agree that it really does look nice now it's finally time to try it out so we can simply plug a 12 volt adapter into The Rustic power cord, and all three sets of LEDs should now light up. As we have three LED controllers powering the different LED strips, it allows them to be set to different modes and colors.

To do this, it's just a case of holding down the various switches on the back and using the remote control to make the adjustments as desired. Limitless combinations can be selected like this, and it's particularly effective for the crystal tower itself as having two colors at once takes what would just be flat looking block illumination and turns it into a much deeper and more visually engaging effect.

I personally love how the various Ledges catch the light and create more intense glowing patches. Very cool indeed. So, that's it for this video; it was a blast to make so hopefully as a result you enjoyed it, and if you did don't forget to give it a good thumbs up cuz that helps me out a lot.

If you would like to download the concept art that I showed you earlier, you can find links to it in the description. If you'd like to see how to make these really nice looking mushroom lights, there's a link to that video as well; it's one of the most popular videos on the channel so if you've not seen it yet it's definitely worth a watch.

**Additional Resources**

If you are a regular viewer, I hope you appreciated the different look it was. It was really nice to actually work with things like some Greenery like this little plant bought it especially by the way; um and you know I it looks brilliant! It's like a huge step up this studio so uh a huge thanks to those who made it happen.

**Conclusion**

I hope I catch you in my next project; so bye for now.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthis is the concept for today's project which is a fantasy floating island style light this is going to be made up of a crystal tower that's slightly translucent so we can have two sets of individually addressable RGB LEDs underneath so that we can light it up in different colors it's also going to be on a floating island it's not actually going to be floating but hopefully we can achieve that kind of look and this is going to be made out of cement there's going to be lots of different techniques used in this video so it should be very interesting so sit back and enjoy so the first thing we'll need for this project is a good-look piece of wood for the backdrop which will later support the floating island I've chosen Walnut as it has a nice grain texture and color to make it a bit more interesting than just a plain old rectangle though we can spice it up by tracing a random Jagged line on top I did this with the help of tissue paper for some true Randomness this can then be cut out using a coping saw and then given a few coats of finishing oil to give it a deeper more Vivid finish as you can see the final result is much more interesting interesting and resembles a distant mountain range now we can start working on the electronics for it first we'll drill two holes relatively far apart on the back but only partway through the wood so that they don't go through to the front next we need to get some sticky back copper tape links to which you can find in the description by the way and add two strips of it on top of these holes these will serve as power lanes for the three LED controllers we need for this project these things are very small and inexpensive and are designed to be hooked up to color changing RGB LED strips literally any color you like can be generated with these thanks to the tuning provided by the remote control the first thing to do with them is remove their outer covers to reveal the circuitry on the inside the four output pins on top can now be removed with a soldering iron as can the infrared receiver on the bottom it's worth taking a photo of its wire colors first though as the receiver will need to be reattached later lastly the power connectors can be chopped off and then the white covering removed leaving us with just the red and black power wise the controllers can then be glued to the back of the wood with the red wires all on one side and the black wires on the other they can all then be trimmed and soldered to the copper tape now one of the infrared receivers can be reattached to any one of the controllers using the image taken earlier for reference so you can get the wires connected in the correct places the leftmost wire can be left loose however and this is because it's the signal wire and we'll be making a separate set of switches to redirect its signal to any one of the controllers as desired to make these switches we'll be going fullon DIY and the first thing we'll need is a strip of thin aluminium as you can see it's quite bendy which is ideal using a knife we can simply score some lines cross it and then bend it repeatedly to break it into three separate pieces these pieces will later be mounted to the wood to form the switches so they also need some mounting holes through which they can be clamped in place using screws we need to drill some pilot holes in the wood for these screws again only going partway in before mounting the aluminium tabs in place however we can drill another three holes near the edge which this time can be joined together with a strip of copper tape and capped off with three small screws these small screws will form electrical contact points for the infrared receiver's signal wire that can at this point be soldered to the copper tape to complete the circuit we can solder a short length of wire to each of the signal receiver pads on the LED controller boards which are of course the ones on the left these wires can then be rooted to each of the three remaining holes and can be clamped in place by screwing bring the aluminium tabs down on top these need to have a slight Bend in them first though so that they hold themselves off the outer screws when pressed the aluminum tabs make contact with these screws and complete the circuit carrying the infrared signal to the control boards individually although it's simple it's pretty cool and looks quite interesting visually as well now it's time to add the first set of RGB LEDs as don't need a particularly long length of them we can cut off some short lengths and stick them to the back of the wood not forgetting to bridge them together using some short wire they now need to be hooked up to one of the controller boards to do this neatly I'm going to use some wire from an old IDE computer cable because it's in a bonded flat form this means that it's possible to peel off a set of four wires to make a really neat connection with the output of one of the controller boards which is the big that had the pins removed from earlier as the LED strips have a particular order for being wired up which is shown on screen here make sure that they get hooked up to the controller board in the correct way using this diagram with that done we now need to make a mounting system for the whole thing to lat to be hung on the wall with a novel way of doing this is by using two copper pipe T joints to prepare them we can first drill two matching holes through both the front and back of each like so now we can take just one of them and drill two more holes in the middle but this time expanding the lower one enough for a screw head to fit into they can now be bridged with a file giving us a biting system that will very securely keep the light in place once it's hung on to the wall now as I'd like the back workings of the light to be a piece of art in its own right I used some metal polish on mine to make them super shiny after rinsing off any residue I then gave them a coat of metal AER to prevent oxidization from causing them to look grubby again they can then be mounted to the back of the wood using some short self-tapping screws again the pilot holes for these must not go through to the front instead being deep enough only for the screws themselves once in place they are very strong and should prove reliable for wall mounting on top of being pretty good-looking as well with the back of the light pretty much complete now it's time to start with working on the stuff you'll actually see and this is where things get particularly interesting so the first thing to do is drill a small hole in the middle of the wood but this time actually going through all the way as wires will later be threaded through it below this we can flank it with two larger holes again going all the way through that are big enough for a set of long bolts to fit into as you may have guessed we're about to start making the floating island that the crystal tower will later sit on this this is going to get quite messy so to keep the wood clean we need to take some tin foil and wrap it around the front like so after breaking through this with a sharp point the screws can be slid in place and to make a seal around them we can simply use some blue tack now we can take some more tin foil and make it into a mold for the floating island I'd like mine to be craggy and uneven so I made sure that the foil was particularly crumpled which should hopefully have a nice effect as it's very weak and flimsy though we need to strengthen it using some gaffer tape this helps to keep the shape of the foil mold intact and works surprisingly well so with that done we can now mix some cement the ti Pim using just requires water to be added but other brands may need some sand to be mixed in too so refer to the instructions on the packaging for guidance once you've mixed up a good amount of it gently add it to the mold lightly patting it to fill in the various gaps once it's dried it can be pulled out of the bolt holes and then the foil removed from it as you can see it looks great and the texture given to it by the foil really does make it look like a rock now to give it some more depth though we can take a brush and SCU The Ridges of the cement with white paint to make some highlights we can do a similar thing with the crevice areas using dark paint this time to give them some emphasis once you're done you should have have something that looks like this which in my opinion looks really cool now it can be pushed back into the bolt holes and secured in place using some nuts now it's time to add the final two sets of LEDs these need to be wired up independently so that they have the potential to be different colors and then solded to an LED controller each on the back again making sure that they're connected in the right way with that done it should be looking something like this and it is at last time to add the centerpiece of the entire build which is of course the crystal tower itself what I'm using here is a tower of selenite which is a form of gypsum as a mineral it's colorless and slightly transparent getting its name from the Greek word for moon I don't know what they were thinking because everyone knows that the moon is made of cheese and this clearly is not but never mind I have of course put some purchasing links to some in the description once you have yours it can simply be glued onto the concrete with some epoxy mine fits so nicely because I wrapped the tower in a protective layer of cling film and then molded the concrete around it whilst it was still drying whilst the epoxy cures we can in the meantime work on the power wiring now having a normal black power cable going up to it on the wall would look at best boring and at worst ugly so let's do something way cooler than that for this we'll need some enameled Co proper wire I salvaged mine from an old electric motor but it can also be purchased separately I'm sure you know by now where to find the links the enamel on it essentially works like insulation but you do need to be gentle so as not to rub any of it off which could cause short circuits once you have two lengths we can double them up so that they can carry the electric current more effectively after which they can be soldered to a power socket now we need some rustic looking dute twine which can be bundled together as three lengths with a cable tie after gluing this to the power socket the jut twine can be plattered together with the enameled copper after which a piece of heat shrink tubing can be used to neaten it up and protect it this gives us a strong and very rustic looking power cord that looks much nicer than your average plastic stuff one thing to keep in mind is that jut twine is flammable when exposed to a naked flame but as it's such a low power project that works on a very low voltage and current involving practically no heat I'm personally happy with it safety-wise for my own use for Peace of Mind however I highly suggest that you soak the twine in flame retardant before platting it together even though this looks great it isn't actually going to go straight to the Tower and instead we'll be going to a small block of wood all will make sense in just a minute our special cable can then be attached to to some solder tabs which can be screwed to the back like so with the twine itself being glued to the wood for strength as this will be leaning on the wall it needs something to rest on which in my case is just two PCB pillars that I glued in place with that done the final thing to do is get two more lengths of enameled copper wire thicker stuff this time though and use some sandpaper on their ends to strip off some of the enamel these sections can be made into loops and then some solder added to bond them together now do you remember those holes we made beneath the power Lanes right at the start of this project well we can make use of them now by clamping our enameled wire Loops down onto them using screws make note of the polarity though as the lane with the red wires going to it is positive and the one with the black wires going to it is negative both of these enameled wires can now be threaded through some holes on the Block and looped around to the back where they too can be clamped underneath the screws there don't forget to remove the enamel on these ends too though so that they make electrical contact okay so by now the epoxy for the selenite Tower should have cured and it's time to mount the whole thing onto the wall the block too can be held in place directly underneath using a nail and should provide a bit of tension to the copper wire to keep it straight this means that our rustic looking power cable goes to the block which in turn Direct directs the electricity through the enameled copper wires straight up to the power lanes for the LED controllers now before we turn this on for the first time there is one last step left before it's complete as you saw in the concept there was some Greenery around the base of the Crystal Tower and to recreate this we'll need a selection of dried Moss type plants these can simply be glued in place in a natural looking formation I had mine Bunch over one side a bit and hang off the edge to make it look like some kind of Ivy or Vines this Final Touch adds a lot to the final look and I hope you agree that it really does look nice now it's finally time to try it out so we can simply plug a 12volt adapter Into The Rustic power cord and all three sets of LEDs should now light up as we have three LED controllers powering the different LED strips it allows them to be set to different modes and colors to do this it's just a case of holding down the various switches on the back and using the remote control to make the adjustments as desired Limitless combinations can be selected like this and it's particularly effective for the crystal tower itself as having two colors at once takes what would just be flatl looking block illumination and turns it into a much deeper and more visually engaging effect I personally love how the various Ledges catch the light and create more intense glowing patches very cool indeed so as far as DIY lights go this one's not bad not bad at all right so that's it for this video it was a blast to make so hopefully as a result you enjoyed it and if you did don't forget to give it a good thumbs up cuz that helps me out a lot now if you'd like to download the concept art that I showed you earlier you can find links to it in the description if you would like it for maybe your phone background or laptop background and uh if you'd like to see how to make these really nice looking mushroom lights there's a link to that video as well it's one of the most popular videos on the channel so if you've not seen it yet it's definitely worth a watch um now this was the first DIY project I've done in my new studio so if you are a regular viewer um I hope you appreciated the you know different look it's was you know really nice to actually work with things like some Greenery like this little plant bought it especially by the way um and you know I it looks brilliant it's like a huge step up this studio so uh a huge thanks to those who made it happen right other than that um I hope I catch you in my next project uh so bye for nowthis is the concept for today's project which is a fantasy floating island style light this is going to be made up of a crystal tower that's slightly translucent so we can have two sets of individually addressable RGB LEDs underneath so that we can light it up in different colors it's also going to be on a floating island it's not actually going to be floating but hopefully we can achieve that kind of look and this is going to be made out of cement there's going to be lots of different techniques used in this video so it should be very interesting so sit back and enjoy so the first thing we'll need for this project is a good-look piece of wood for the backdrop which will later support the floating island I've chosen Walnut as it has a nice grain texture and color to make it a bit more interesting than just a plain old rectangle though we can spice it up by tracing a random Jagged line on top I did this with the help of tissue paper for some true Randomness this can then be cut out using a coping saw and then given a few coats of finishing oil to give it a deeper more Vivid finish as you can see the final result is much more interesting interesting and resembles a distant mountain range now we can start working on the electronics for it first we'll drill two holes relatively far apart on the back but only partway through the wood so that they don't go through to the front next we need to get some sticky back copper tape links to which you can find in the description by the way and add two strips of it on top of these holes these will serve as power lanes for the three LED controllers we need for this project these things are very small and inexpensive and are designed to be hooked up to color changing RGB LED strips literally any color you like can be generated with these thanks to the tuning provided by the remote control the first thing to do with them is remove their outer covers to reveal the circuitry on the inside the four output pins on top can now be removed with a soldering iron as can the infrared receiver on the bottom it's worth taking a photo of its wire colors first though as the receiver will need to be reattached later lastly the power connectors can be chopped off and then the white covering removed leaving us with just the red and black power wise the controllers can then be glued to the back of the wood with the red wires all on one side and the black wires on the other they can all then be trimmed and soldered to the copper tape now one of the infrared receivers can be reattached to any one of the controllers using the image taken earlier for reference so you can get the wires connected in the correct places the leftmost wire can be left loose however and this is because it's the signal wire and we'll be making a separate set of switches to redirect its signal to any one of the controllers as desired to make these switches we'll be going fullon DIY and the first thing we'll need is a strip of thin aluminium as you can see it's quite bendy which is ideal using a knife we can simply score some lines cross it and then bend it repeatedly to break it into three separate pieces these pieces will later be mounted to the wood to form the switches so they also need some mounting holes through which they can be clamped in place using screws we need to drill some pilot holes in the wood for these screws again only going partway in before mounting the aluminium tabs in place however we can drill another three holes near the edge which this time can be joined together with a strip of copper tape and capped off with three small screws these small screws will form electrical contact points for the infrared receiver's signal wire that can at this point be soldered to the copper tape to complete the circuit we can solder a short length of wire to each of the signal receiver pads on the LED controller boards which are of course the ones on the left these wires can then be rooted to each of the three remaining holes and can be clamped in place by screwing bring the aluminium tabs down on top these need to have a slight Bend in them first though so that they hold themselves off the outer screws when pressed the aluminum tabs make contact with these screws and complete the circuit carrying the infrared signal to the control boards individually although it's simple it's pretty cool and looks quite interesting visually as well now it's time to add the first set of RGB LEDs as don't need a particularly long length of them we can cut off some short lengths and stick them to the back of the wood not forgetting to bridge them together using some short wire they now need to be hooked up to one of the controller boards to do this neatly I'm going to use some wire from an old IDE computer cable because it's in a bonded flat form this means that it's possible to peel off a set of four wires to make a really neat connection with the output of one of the controller boards which is the big that had the pins removed from earlier as the LED strips have a particular order for being wired up which is shown on screen here make sure that they get hooked up to the controller board in the correct way using this diagram with that done we now need to make a mounting system for the whole thing to lat to be hung on the wall with a novel way of doing this is by using two copper pipe T joints to prepare them we can first drill two matching holes through both the front and back of each like so now we can take just one of them and drill two more holes in the middle but this time expanding the lower one enough for a screw head to fit into they can now be bridged with a file giving us a biting system that will very securely keep the light in place once it's hung on to the wall now as I'd like the back workings of the light to be a piece of art in its own right I used some metal polish on mine to make them super shiny after rinsing off any residue I then gave them a coat of metal AER to prevent oxidization from causing them to look grubby again they can then be mounted to the back of the wood using some short self-tapping screws again the pilot holes for these must not go through to the front instead being deep enough only for the screws themselves once in place they are very strong and should prove reliable for wall mounting on top of being pretty good-looking as well with the back of the light pretty much complete now it's time to start with working on the stuff you'll actually see and this is where things get particularly interesting so the first thing to do is drill a small hole in the middle of the wood but this time actually going through all the way as wires will later be threaded through it below this we can flank it with two larger holes again going all the way through that are big enough for a set of long bolts to fit into as you may have guessed we're about to start making the floating island that the crystal tower will later sit on this this is going to get quite messy so to keep the wood clean we need to take some tin foil and wrap it around the front like so after breaking through this with a sharp point the screws can be slid in place and to make a seal around them we can simply use some blue tack now we can take some more tin foil and make it into a mold for the floating island I'd like mine to be craggy and uneven so I made sure that the foil was particularly crumpled which should hopefully have a nice effect as it's very weak and flimsy though we need to strengthen it using some gaffer tape this helps to keep the shape of the foil mold intact and works surprisingly well so with that done we can now mix some cement the ti Pim using just requires water to be added but other brands may need some sand to be mixed in too so refer to the instructions on the packaging for guidance once you've mixed up a good amount of it gently add it to the mold lightly patting it to fill in the various gaps once it's dried it can be pulled out of the bolt holes and then the foil removed from it as you can see it looks great and the texture given to it by the foil really does make it look like a rock now to give it some more depth though we can take a brush and SCU The Ridges of the cement with white paint to make some highlights we can do a similar thing with the crevice areas using dark paint this time to give them some emphasis once you're done you should have have something that looks like this which in my opinion looks really cool now it can be pushed back into the bolt holes and secured in place using some nuts now it's time to add the final two sets of LEDs these need to be wired up independently so that they have the potential to be different colors and then solded to an LED controller each on the back again making sure that they're connected in the right way with that done it should be looking something like this and it is at last time to add the centerpiece of the entire build which is of course the crystal tower itself what I'm using here is a tower of selenite which is a form of gypsum as a mineral it's colorless and slightly transparent getting its name from the Greek word for moon I don't know what they were thinking because everyone knows that the moon is made of cheese and this clearly is not but never mind I have of course put some purchasing links to some in the description once you have yours it can simply be glued onto the concrete with some epoxy mine fits so nicely because I wrapped the tower in a protective layer of cling film and then molded the concrete around it whilst it was still drying whilst the epoxy cures we can in the meantime work on the power wiring now having a normal black power cable going up to it on the wall would look at best boring and at worst ugly so let's do something way cooler than that for this we'll need some enameled Co proper wire I salvaged mine from an old electric motor but it can also be purchased separately I'm sure you know by now where to find the links the enamel on it essentially works like insulation but you do need to be gentle so as not to rub any of it off which could cause short circuits once you have two lengths we can double them up so that they can carry the electric current more effectively after which they can be soldered to a power socket now we need some rustic looking dute twine which can be bundled together as three lengths with a cable tie after gluing this to the power socket the jut twine can be plattered together with the enameled copper after which a piece of heat shrink tubing can be used to neaten it up and protect it this gives us a strong and very rustic looking power cord that looks much nicer than your average plastic stuff one thing to keep in mind is that jut twine is flammable when exposed to a naked flame but as it's such a low power project that works on a very low voltage and current involving practically no heat I'm personally happy with it safety-wise for my own use for Peace of Mind however I highly suggest that you soak the twine in flame retardant before platting it together even though this looks great it isn't actually going to go straight to the Tower and instead we'll be going to a small block of wood all will make sense in just a minute our special cable can then be attached to to some solder tabs which can be screwed to the back like so with the twine itself being glued to the wood for strength as this will be leaning on the wall it needs something to rest on which in my case is just two PCB pillars that I glued in place with that done the final thing to do is get two more lengths of enameled copper wire thicker stuff this time though and use some sandpaper on their ends to strip off some of the enamel these sections can be made into loops and then some solder added to bond them together now do you remember those holes we made beneath the power Lanes right at the start of this project well we can make use of them now by clamping our enameled wire Loops down onto them using screws make note of the polarity though as the lane with the red wires going to it is positive and the one with the black wires going to it is negative both of these enameled wires can now be threaded through some holes on the Block and looped around to the back where they too can be clamped underneath the screws there don't forget to remove the enamel on these ends too though so that they make electrical contact okay so by now the epoxy for the selenite Tower should have cured and it's time to mount the whole thing onto the wall the block too can be held in place directly underneath using a nail and should provide a bit of tension to the copper wire to keep it straight this means that our rustic looking power cable goes to the block which in turn Direct directs the electricity through the enameled copper wires straight up to the power lanes for the LED controllers now before we turn this on for the first time there is one last step left before it's complete as you saw in the concept there was some Greenery around the base of the Crystal Tower and to recreate this we'll need a selection of dried Moss type plants these can simply be glued in place in a natural looking formation I had mine Bunch over one side a bit and hang off the edge to make it look like some kind of Ivy or Vines this Final Touch adds a lot to the final look and I hope you agree that it really does look nice now it's finally time to try it out so we can simply plug a 12volt adapter Into The Rustic power cord and all three sets of LEDs should now light up as we have three LED controllers powering the different LED strips it allows them to be set to different modes and colors to do this it's just a case of holding down the various switches on the back and using the remote control to make the adjustments as desired Limitless combinations can be selected like this and it's particularly effective for the crystal tower itself as having two colors at once takes what would just be flatl looking block illumination and turns it into a much deeper and more visually engaging effect I personally love how the various Ledges catch the light and create more intense glowing patches very cool indeed so as far as DIY lights go this one's not bad not bad at all right so that's it for this video it was a blast to make so hopefully as a result you enjoyed it and if you did don't forget to give it a good thumbs up cuz that helps me out a lot now if you'd like to download the concept art that I showed you earlier you can find links to it in the description if you would like it for maybe your phone background or laptop background and uh if you'd like to see how to make these really nice looking mushroom lights there's a link to that video as well it's one of the most popular videos on the channel so if you've not seen it yet it's definitely worth a watch um now this was the first DIY project I've done in my new studio so if you are a regular viewer um I hope you appreciated the you know different look it's was you know really nice to actually work with things like some Greenery like this little plant bought it especially by the way um and you know I it looks brilliant it's like a huge step up this studio so uh a huge thanks to those who made it happen right other than that um I hope I catch you in my next project uh so bye for now\n"