What it had to solve
Make: Vol. 97 needed a wearable project showing makers how electronics, sewing and 3D printing on fabric combine.
The idea
21st-century bedazzling: swap rhinestones for 3D-printed flowers wired with addressable LED strings, printed onto fabric.
How it works
Print flexible floral forms, cut HTV stems and leaves, arrange the flowers, then solder addressable LED strings into each bloom and sew the array onto a denim jacket whose stiffness protects the wiring.
What it did
Published in Make: Vol. 97 and on makezine.com (October 2026) as a step-by-step project — a replicable template for wearable light art.
Background
In Make: Vol. 97 (published online 8 October 2026), maker and educator Debra Ansell presented the BedazzLED Jean Jacket — a denim jacket decorated with flexible 3D-printed flowers dynamically lit by addressable LED strings, updating 1970s-style bedazzling for the 2020s.
The build mixes crafts: 3D-printed floral forms, heat-transfer-vinyl stems and leaves, flower arranging on the jacket, then soldering LED strings into each bloom and sewing them down. Denim does double duty — stiff enough to protect the electronics, soft enough to wear — while the wiring is routed through cut holes and secured out of sight.
The project is published as a complete step-by-step guide — twelve steps, about a day's work, $51–150 in parts — so the effect is a replicable technique for wearable light art rather than a one-off piece.
Why it lands
It reframed bedazzling — a punchline of dated fashion — as a lighting-design problem
3D printing on fabric let the ornament carry electronics without rigid mounts
Denim's stiffness was used as an engineering property, not just a canvas
Publishing the full build turns one jacket into a technique other makers can reuse
What you can take
Reinterpret a dated craft with today's tools: the old idea supplies the grammar, new manufacturing supplies the wow.
Since then
The project lives on makezine.com as a printable guide; Ansell continues demonstrating that 'LEDs improve everything' through wearable builds.
FOLLOW THE EVIDENCE
The sources
- BedazzLED Jean Jacket makezine.com