Five Nights at Freddy's TV Cabinet

I was redoing my boyfriends sons room in Five Nights at Freddy's. His grandmother had a cabinet she was going to use to put his tv and game system in, but we agreed that boys will be boys, and that the glass doors it had on it, simply would not be safe around ten year olds who might rough house and break them, or themselves on the glass. So, I figured it would be easy to take the doors off, get some wood trim and make new doors. We had some aluminum flashing that we had intended to use to patch up spots on the roof, but never got around to. My grandmother when I was younger had made some cabinet doors flashing as the inside panel. She had drawn on different vegetables, such as green beans, tomatoes and peppers, then she used a nail to punch the design in and  used them as doors on her pantry. Its looked really nice, and I thought I would do that here, except I was going to use LED lights to make the design POP that much more

 So, I got the wood trim, cut the pieces to size to make the outline of the cabinet doors. Sanded and stained them to match the original cabinet. Coated with a few coats of varnish, nailed them together. Now I had the outside edge of my doors. I then got the aluminum flashing out, measured the length I needed for each door. I printed out the characters that his son liked the most. For this you do not want something too complicated, or you will end up with so many tiny holes the tin might fall apart. Also, its hard to punch a pattern in tin, when the pattern is too close together in some spots. I am sorry I do not have pictures of the doors once finished. I had an issue with transferring them from my phone and lost a bunch of photos.

You want to measure out your tin (aluminum flashing) to fit the back of your cabinet door with at least a half inch to spare around the edges to leave room for nailing it to the cabinet doors. I was lucky and the flashing fit perfectly without any cutting on the edges. All I had to measure was the length of each piece. I then used masking tape to tape around the edges as they can be sharp. 

 After printing out the pattern ( I used FNAF coloring pages although you could simply draw your own design with a sharpie, you can use rubbing alcohol to erase it when done or you could print off any pattern really) I had to print half on one page and half of it on another to get it to fit the door and be centered. I taped the pattern to the aluminum flashing. Then I taped the whole piece to a flat piece of board, or paneling. You can get tools from any arts and craft store made for punching metal, or even leather punching tools , but I found a nail and hammer work fine. Although for this project I used a small nail and a hobby hammer my boyfriend bought me as a present. I love that little hammer. It even has a tool that holds the nails for you. Although a  Childs hammer will work fine, as its light weight, and you are simply trying to punch a hole through aluminum flashing. You dont want to hit the nail or hole punching tool too hard. I would recommend using a scrap piece to practice on to find out how much force is needed to punch the hole size you are wanting. Also, try different size nails or punching tools to see which you like best. After you have practiced, you simply trace the pattern with nail holes. Until you have punched along the whole pattern.

Your design should look like a connect the dots picture once done. If you put them too close together you will simply be cutting your design out of the tin using a lot of punched holes. You do not want that.

 I back lit the doors with LED lights inside the cabinet, but you could simply put your aluminum panels inside your cabinet doors. I used small nails to nail the tin panels on the back side of the doors and installed them. You can do this with any cabinet doors. If the glass gets broken, or you find a cabinet with a broken or missing doors. I love to refinish and re-purpose furniture.

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