Decorate A Christmas Tree Light Box

Over the past two years Adam and I have been trying to create a cheap DIY light box. We made one from an Ikea underbed storage box but the lid caved in too much. We made small light boxes – ones from plastic lunch boxes but they were too tiny to actually play on. I couldn’t find a plastic box sturdy or big enough for our light play activities without breaking the bank. However, Cosy Direct came to our rescue.

Cosy Direct have produced a “Cheap LightBox” for less than £8 (excluding VAT). The best part is that you get not one lightbox for that price but two!

The opaque trays are 30cm so big enough for the majority of light play activities. They are only 2.5cm deep so your child can get close to the action. You simply add LED battery operated fairy lights to create your DIY lightbox.

I purchased our battery Christmas lights from PoundLand at buy one get one half price. I added five sets with 20 LEDs but upon reflection this was too many. The battery packs fitted down the edge of the tray and I spread the lights out on the bottom tray. Adam helped me turn on the lights. We then put the lid on which fitted easily. Out of tradition I added a sheet of baking paper (I had ran out of tracing paper) underneath the lid. I am undecided as to whether this was needed or not. It was hard to tell as I had used so many lights!

To make our Decorate A Christmas Tree Light Box, I experimented with painting a Christmas Tree onto the lid of the lightbox. This is something I have not been able to do with my previous DIY lightboxes. The green paint went on easily and dried quickly. In no time at all our Christmas tree was ready to decorate.

Adam chose to use a packet of geometric shapes from Imagido to decorate his first Christmas tree. As the shapes are translucent you can observe colour mixing when the shapes are placed on top of each other. The packet contained hexagons, parallelograms, squares, triangles, trapezoids and rhombi so we could expand Adam’s repertoire of shape names.

After decorating several Christmas trees with the geometic shapes Adam turned his attention to the plastic reusable ice cubes. These looked great on top of the light box and added a 3D element to the tree.

We were impressed with the Cosy Direct Cheap Light Box. Finally we have found a frugal DIY light box that works for us. I am very excited by our future light box activities!

Disclaimer: We were given a “Cheap Lightbox” from Cosy Direct to review. All thoughts and opinions are our own.

Are you looking for Christmas Ornaments crafts to do with your children? Then take a look at Red Ted Art’s Christmas Ornaments ebook. Find 30 festive easy-to-do ideas all in one place. Click here to find out more.