The Altoids tin

 I ordered some parts from Mouser, and picked up some from Radio Shack. The wife asked what I was up to which came with the usual... Nuthin... She knows better. I saw this link on one of my Favorite Websites I saw what he had done, but I thought with a few changes I might be able to do a bit better. I decided that instead of a normal open switch that you have to set it off to disable the alarm, I would instead use a reed switch. This would allow me to open it up to get one out, while palming the magnet, then hand it to the intended victim (let's say, my wife) and it goes off when she opens it up. 

 So the whole thing runs off a 555 timer. Here are a pair of them. I bought the stuff for two so that I could make two (and sell one) I also picked up a smaller speaker. UNFORTUNATELY the 1N914s I picked up were surface mount, and I didn't actually order a reed switch, just the magnet. Well I'll have to use the magnet anyway, I picked up some through hole diodes  (and a PCB) at Radio Slack and began the process of bread-boarding. I wanted to breadboard it so that I knew that it would work before spending time soldering it. That makes sense. I would love to say that it went together smoothly... Alas it did not. It got pushed aside, and forgotten. Over time parts got moved, project got set aside, picked back up, put back down...  I finally (after the tardis light even) got back around to working with this. I soldered it all onto a protoboard and it didn't work. I poked, prodded, cussed, stamped my feet, left it, came back, and gave up.

I gave up hope for real and set about to desoldering all the components. By the time that was all done I had decided to 'dead bug' it. For the rest of the world, that is an artful composition of components, harmoniously placed together... for me it's two vodka and cokes, a hot soldering iron and a ton of hot glue.

it worked

Most bizarre thing I've seen, but it worked. I've shown it around had a few laughs with it, surprised a few people, and played a tune that was exactly like the Dr Who theme doesn't sound like. I didn't post a pic, because really... its a 9v battery lead going into a giant blob of hot glue wired to a speaker... I doubt the TSA would let me through with it...