RE: flying by the seat of my pants!
For the lights, you can make simple molds for pouring epoxy resin into, and sinking the lights inside the liquid resin, then painting the metal silver housing on it or using press and stick chrome foil that plastic modelers use, and leaving the lens clear.
Just carve a small master out of balsa, mount it to a flat surface and coat it with white glue. After that dries, use red RTV out of the tube to coat that for your rubber mold. When that is dry, peel it off and you will have a mold cavity to sink your LED into and pour with epoxy.
Sounds like a lot of work but thats just one idea.