I have no idea what I'm doing; is my idea possible? Help and thanks.

[echo]

I want to create a small project for a holiday display. I have very little electrical experience, just the basic household stuff like changing an outlet or light switch.
What I would like to do is have a device that allows me to:
-play original sound/music
-run fairy lights
-be battery operated
-switch between lights only and light with sound

If it is possible to do please, explain what items I would need and how to make it happen.
If it's not possible could you throw out some other ideas of how to get something similar

Brief description of project:
A table top holiday decoration. I have a lantern that I want to create a winter scene inside of. I would like to have lights in the lantern to add to the "snow effect". I want to be able to use a song that was recorded by a friend of mine as this will end up being a gift for them. I would like for it to be able to go anywhere which is why I want it to run on batteries. I want to be able to turn off the song and have the light still work. I would LOVE to be able to program the lights to move with the song and just twinkle when no song is selected but that sounds really complicated.

Thank you!!

 

[defragster]

I'd find something similar of interest with a web search - Teensy and PJRC have the hardware base, Here is a link to PJRC's collection of posted projects: teensy/projects.html

Things like this may offer ideas on the complexity and the possibilities: instructables.com/id/Music-Player-using-Teensy-31/

Adafruit and Sparkfun may have added lights and parts or example projects or tutorials.

 

[echo]

Thank you for the response, I will take at look at those options.

 

[GremlinWrangler]

The project is certainly possible but will involve some non trivial work gluing everything together and will be ambitious do achieve before this holiday season so adjust expectations accordingly. The prop shield will simplify a lot of what you are trying to do
https://www.pjrc.com/store/prop_shield_lowcost.html
by including level converters for strip lights and a amplifier suitable for a small speaker.
One key decision in this is what sort of LEDs you want to have. If you are just having 3-6 visible under dim/no lighting then you can drive them from the Teensy pins themselves. If you want to a small number of bright LEDs you can add transistors but probably the simple way is LED strips.

These come in several flavours, the most common use a single data line to control which will clash with sound effects unless you dig deeper into things than is a good idea on a first project. A better option may be the two wire LED strips like these
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-dotstar-leds/overview which work much better with the sound effects (adafruit is not the only source of these, but do sell ones that actually work out of the box).
For sound the Teensy solution is to use the audio library, which is powerful but puts you on a steep curve to get this done https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/td_libs_Audio.html since even just playing a .wav file you still need to manage storing it and detecting when to start it again.
A possibly missing element in this is the power - while there are may solutions for this my suggestion given all the other complications is to find a USB power bank that fits your plan size and use that. It will not be as compact or efficient as a bespoke solution but will have the advantage of just working and in 2019 you will have a power bank.

If you have not brought hardware yet would suggest downloading and installing Arduino and the teensyduino add in https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/td_download.html, look in file->examples->audio and see if you can see what you would need to do to get your sound needs working, then dig into the lights side, maybe even write some code and make sure it compiles. Then think about spending money, noting you will need spares of everything due probability of a learning experience that lets the smoke out.

There are also some other solutions for this that are less clever but have shallower curves where you buy pre built sound and lighting modules and wire them to the same power supple/switches, or even building around an old MP3 player or phone. A lot depends on how much you want to learn doing this, how much time you have and how hard your deadline is.

 

[echo]

Wow, this sounds very involved and way beyond my current capabilities. Maybe I will have to wait until next year and work on learning more about this. Thank you for the info.

The project is certainly possible but will involve some non trivial work gluing everything together and will be ambitious do achieve before this holiday season so adjust expectations accordingly. The prop shield will simplify a lot of what you are trying to do
https://www.pjrc.com/store/prop_shield_lowcost.html
by including level converters for strip lights and a amplifier suitable for a small speaker.
One key decision in this is what sort of LEDs you want to have. If you are just having 3-6 visible under dim/no lighting then you can drive them from the Teensy pins themselves. If you want to a small number of bright LEDs you can add transistors but probably the simple way is LED strips.

These come in several flavours, the most common use a single data line to control which will clash with sound effects unless you dig deeper into things than is a good idea on a first project. A better option may be the two wire LED strips like these
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-dotstar-leds/overview which work much better with the sound effects (adafruit is not the only source of these, but do sell ones that actually work out of the box).
For sound the Teensy solution is to use the audio library, which is powerful but puts you on a steep curve to get this done https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/td_libs_Audio.html since even just playing a .wav file you still need to manage storing it and detecting when to start it again.
A possibly missing element in this is the power - while there are may solutions for this my suggestion given all the other complications is to find a USB power bank that fits your plan size and use that. It will not be as compact or efficient as a bespoke solution but will have the advantage of just working and in 2019 you will have a power bank.

If you have not brought hardware yet would suggest downloading and installing Arduino and the teensyduino add in https://www.pjrc.com/teensy/td_download.html, look in file->examples->audio and see if you can see what you would need to do to get your sound needs working, then dig into the lights side, maybe even write some code and make sure it compiles. Then think about spending money, noting you will need spares of everything due probability of a learning experience that lets the smoke out.

There are also some other solutions for this that are less clever but have shallower curves where you buy pre built sound and lighting modules and wire them to the same power supple/switches, or even building around an old MP3 player or phone. A lot depends on how much you want to learn doing this, how much time you have and how hard your deadline is.