Thread: Where to buy cheap LED color changing item to put in Haunted Lantern?

Tweet

Where can I buy a cheap (USD $4 or less) LED color changing item (e.g. keychain or whatever)? I'd like it to have multiple colors shown at the same time but with a slow morphing effect. I've seen ~$4 little keychain type LED items in Target that slowly change from one single color to another. Pretty cool. But I know I've seen something that includes multiple simultaneous colors and some slow changing effect. Cannot for the life of me recall where.

The idea is to place it in the frosted glass "guts" of my Haunted Lantern. It currently has an LED flickering tea light in it. But I'd like to experiment with these morphing LED toys / keychains. Guess I could take two or three of the single changing keychains and start them up "off cycle". But at $4 each at Target, that's $12 already. Would like to find either 1 item that does what I want or $1/ea or $2/ea LED color changing toys.

Been a while since I've seen the film. But in Raiders of the Lost Ark, isn't there a fog + changing light color effect in the Ark of the Covenant before they open the lid? I'm going for that kind of effect. Wouldn't have to be just for a Haunted Lantern. Could be some other artifact like a Pandora's Box or other Haunted item. Lots of possibilities.

Years a go I bought a bunch of those color changing small pumpkins you put inside your jack-o-lanterns at K-mart.

If you are lucky, the Dollar Tree might still have a color changing stand that they sell to put those laser cut glass cubes with an image inside them on top of. They looked like cheap junk but you could get the lighting mechanism out of it. There are also color changing tea lights as well but I don't know what store would actually have them. I'm trying to think of a place that had color changing toys like that but I can't come up with one off the top of my head. Check the kids' toys in Dollar Tree if you go in, as well. Also there are solar color-changing yard stakes like hummingbirds and butterflies. $4 for one item seems high to me. If you can find a cheaper one you could buy several.

I saw color-changing tea lights at the local Dollar Store last week.

I saw color changing tea lights advertised at K-Mart last month.

At Walmart today I saw the color changing pumpkin lights and they were under 3 dollars. I was going to pick up a couple but didn't. I think I'll go back tomorrow and get some.

I also made some of my own this summer with a color changing LED and a resistor. Of course that means you would have to do some soldering.

Walgreens had them for $3.99 ... Walgreens had some pretty hackable props this year at good prices

[edit] oops sorry reread post... Dollar tree it is

Thanks everyone. I've been to 3 Dollar Tree stores so far in my area and none had color changing tea lights or anything like this. But then I've noticed certain Walgreens have a lot more Halloween stock than others in the same area. There's only 1 out of 3 Walgreens I've been too that had the full complement of cool Halloween stuff. Guess it's based on the size of the seasonal section in any given store.

I'll check KMart again.