To start, find a clock you like on Amazon or where ever. I chose this basic clock because it was really in expensive and good enough size to house all of the components I would need.

This is the easy step, just take the clock all apart to the base platform.  Remove the face, hands, and motor.

I used my 3D printer to make the face but you don't have to. You could just print out something on your printer. But, because I used my 3D printer with a small bed, the face I printed didn't cover the entire clock. This turned out to be OK because I had also printed out inside trim pieces to offset the face from the back of the clock. 

If you do use a 3D printer, this will have to be a vector graphic. 

These trim pieces allow the face to be offset from the clock. I had to do this because I was adding a display, but I could also just have cut out the back of the clock. Do whatever fits your needs, this is just the road I took. I think I will try cutting out the back of the clock next time. 

The trim pieces have holes for 3mm LEDs. This will provide back lighting. You can use any form of backlighting you'd like, I just have a lot of LEDs to use. 

I typically use a bread board for smaller project to ensure things are working before I set everything into place. This provides an easy way to test and debug any issues. It also gives you assurance that it worked before installing it into the clock, so if anything broke it was during the installation. The wire diagram and code are on GitHub. 

https://github.com/CodeMakesItGo/ThemedClock

After everything is working on the bread board it is time to transfer them into the clock. The only component that I really cared about positioning correctly was the DF Player because I wanted access the the SD mini card to change the sounds if needed. 

Once the components are installed, test to ensure everything is working again. 

This back face really helps a lot to help backlight the face. It also helps reduce any components with LEDs shining through to the front. 

This clock motor used a AA battery to power it. You can keep the AA battery for simplicity but I figured if we were already feeding it constant power why not use that instead of using another battery. So, add in a fake AA battery wired up to a voltage regulator set as close to 1.5V as possible.