Princess Crown Headboard

A birthday present for my eldest Granddaughter. She drew what she wanted ...

... and I made it ...

Again, this is another MDF project. Sheets of this stuff are so cheap and as this project will be all painted there is no point making it from solid wood. Smaller pieces of MDF were dowel jointed together to make a larger board. This is because I need to get the MDF sheets cut in to 600mm boards in order to get them in my car. The dowel jig I use is fairly accurate and so a bit of filler and a good sanding can make the joints fairly invisible. The main body of the headboard is than cut with a jigsaw and a router.

Whilst this is a simple piece of construction the interesting part was using a scrollsaw and router to cut out circular and diamond shapes. This is something I hadn't attempted before but was very pleased with the results.

My plan was to make the jewels of the crown into night-lights. Enclosed shapes house some LED lighting. A backing of some white faced fiber-board would help to make them glow. Clear plastic windows were painted with a cut jewel pattern and lightly painted to allow light to filter through.

Three coats of paint and two coats of clear varnish provide a bright and tough finish.

And here is the finished product ...

The LEDs are powered from a spare 12V mains adapter which used to power an answerphone. A small latching illuminated push-button turns the night-lights on and off ... you can just about make it out in the tail of the 'P'. The headboard was sized to fit snugly with the existing bed headboard, with a few screws to hold it in place.