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An idea for the lighting.
If you can find a chest that has a lip that runs around the inside of the opening you could tuck some LEDs under the lip that would add a nice glow effect without being too obvious.
Here's an instructables link for wiring. I haven't done any of this myself but have taken basic electronics classes in high school and college and remember them being very simple. I think the big thing you'll need to do is have a pretty concrete plan of what you want and how you want to get there. http://www.instructables.com/id/LEDs-for-Beginners/
If one were a classy gent one could take an existing mechanical music box mechanism, file off the old pins on the drum and fit new ones (bits of paper clip glued into drilled holes maybe) to play the tune.
If there isn't a lip under which to hide the LED's you could fit an frosted acrylic bottom on the inside and hide them under there.
There's a ridiculously detailed description of some guy building his own custom music box here. Like, he uses polymer clay to mold his own cylinder and everything. Kind of cool, but a whole lot of work.
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The light would be a separate circuit and fairly simple I'd imagine.
If you can find a chest that has a lip that runs around the inside of the opening you could tuck some LEDs under the lip that would add a nice glow effect without being too obvious.
Here's an instructables link for wiring. I haven't done any of this myself but have taken basic electronics classes in high school and college and remember them being very simple. I think the big thing you'll need to do is have a pretty concrete plan of what you want and how you want to get there.
http://www.instructables.com/id/LEDs-for-Beginners/
If there isn't a lip under which to hide the LED's you could fit an frosted acrylic bottom on the inside and hide them under there.