This light strand has 100 lights. I decided to use four lights in each mushroom, giving me a total of 25 mushrooms. Each mushroom has the same number of lights, and all them are roughly the same size. This way the animation seems to move smoothly down the strand, spending the same amount of time moving "through" each mushroom.
If I were to do this project again, I'd consider giving my mushrooms a little more of a size gradient -- I'd make some tiny ones with just one or two lights and some giant ones with 6-8 lights inside. The animations wouldn't move as smoothly through -- they'd zip through the tiny mushrooms and spend more time in the large ones -- but that might give an organic feel to the motion and add a little more visual interest. Options!
This light strand is a fixed-address strand, which means we can't just cut it and use the rest with a different controller or another project. The lights are hard-coded with a pixel number so attaching a connector further down the strand would not work. Also, these wires are wicked hard to solder to since the resin coating covers the wires completely. It's possible to burn the coating off with a lighter (useful to know if you break a wire accidentally) but it's not easy.
If you want a shorter strand / fewer mushrooms that's fine -- you can cut the strand and the first pixels will still work, but the cut-off pixels are headed for the trash.
Once you've decided how many lights you want in each mushroom, start twisting the wire into shape. The wire goes up and then back down on each mushroom. The first and fourth lights form the base, and the second and third form the mushroom stem. I tried to place the third light in each mushroom right at the very tippy-top of the stem so it will illuminate the cap as much as possible.
Glue the two base lights down to your silicone mat with hot glue to hold it in place.
Please be careful with the hot glue gun and glue. It can burn.
Get your glue gun really really hot, then squeeze a bunch of glue out over the top pixel. Let it flow down along the wire frame until it covers the base. This takes a little practice, but you have plenty of mushrooms to practice on.
If the glue is setting up too fast, a heat gun can re-melt it so it continues flowing the way you want.
Squeeze out some 1.5"-2" puddles of glue onto your silicone mat to make the mushroom caps. Let them cool off and set up completely before peeling them up. I found them easiest to work with when they were still a little bit warm and flexible but not hot enough that I could leave fingerprints.
Attach the cooled caps to the tops of the stems by melting a little divot on the underside with the tip of your glue gun, then squeeze a little wet glue in and attach them together.
I used my heat gun to give the caps a more curved, organic look. But be careful: too much heat and you'll get melty, drippy mushrooms.
Mount the Mushrooms
I started with the idea of making a magic mushroom mirror. Laid out on the floor it looked so lovely! But I quickly realized I made my mushrooms a bit too big and heavy to securely attach in this way.
I scrapped that idea, and instead found a lovely oak log that was already covered in wood-ear mushrooms. I used hot glue to secure the mushrooms to the top of the log, clustering them in groups of 2 or 3, and winding any excess wire around the mushroom stems.
Once they were all attached, I glued some preserved moss onto the log in between the mushrooms to cover up the wires and add a little more whimsy. It led to such a delightful result!
Page last edited December 05, 2025
Text editor powered by tinymce.
