Do-It-Yourself Halloween Decoration How-To Tips

Monday, October 3, 2011

Illuminated Monster Eyes for Do It Yourself Halloween Decor

Here’s an easy way to add eyes peering through your windows. It's a peek into an awesome Halloween Decoration!

Categories: Illuminated decoration.

Skill level: Fairly Easy.

Time needed: 15-30 minutes.

Expense: $2.00 - $4.00

You may be familiar with our “TerrorEyes” I & II DVDs which allow you to put animated, moving eyes with soundtracks into your windows. If you want to add many windows with stagnant yet scary eyes, we’ve provided high resolution images of all of our TerrorEyes for a free download at: http://booityourself.com/HalloweenEyes/

At this page, you will see nine different eyes that you can download!

Each of the eyes is in an 8.5x11 inch (standard letter size) pdf file. Note that some images are vertical and others horizontal, but they ALL will print out in standard profile mode. You do NOT need to change the print to landscape mode. Following this project’s instructions, we’ve placed two eye prints for your immediate convenience.

You can make your very own creepy illuminated eyes to peep out of your windows

for Halloween...or any time of the year if you really want to keep your neighbors

up all night throughout the year!

Basically, you're going to print out 2 copies of any of the nine Halloween EYE images provided at http://booityourself.com/HalloweenEyes/

You'll then either allow your ambient room lighting to illuminate the peepers or make a simple light-box for each.

STEP 0) PRINT

Use a color ink-jet or laser printer to print out one or two or however many you wish to have in your various windows. If your printer allows you to print boarder-less, then go boarder-less!!

When held up to the light, you can see that the image is translucent.

There's two ways to use your Eyes. If you simply want to use a nearby room lamp to illuminate those babies, then you will merely need to surround the eyes with opaque blackness to seal the window off so that nothing other than the eye can be seen from outside.

METHOD A – Using Ambient room lighting:

METHOD A STEP 1) Get Material

You can either get some black poster board or, my favorite and least expensive, just get a large black trash bag. Unless you have a really thick bag, most bags are not completely opaque, so leave the bag in-tact (doubled-up).

METHOD A STEPs 2 & 3) Trace and Cut

Lay out either the poster board or plastic. Cut the piece so that it fits your window. Then

locate where in the frame of the window you want your eyes. Then cut out holes to tape your eyes into. The holes can either fit the eye perfectly, or you can cut out approximately a 7.5 inch by 9.5 inch square to accommodate the 8.5 x 11 inch eye print. Make sure the black poster board or plastic bag covers any white boarder on the print if your printer left one on the image.

METHOD A STEP 4) TAPE Simply tape the eye prints onto the plastic or poster board.

METHOD A STEP 5) Hang the whole thing in your window. Be sure to cover up any other windows nearby.

METHOD A STEP 6) Finally, make sure you have a room light or nearby lamp on to illuminate your Eyes. Always play it safe and NEVER put a hot lamp too close to the plastic or poster board or paper images. Keep at least two feet away.

METHOD B: Using home-made Light Boxes:

METHOD B STEP 1) Now, if you want to make your own light boxes for the eyes, you'll need a small cardboard box for each eye. Shirt-boxes or shipping boxes work great. If you have a used United States Postal Shipping Box or FedEx Box, these are ideal!

METHOD B STEP 2) CUT out the square or round hole for the eye prints.

METHOD B STEP 3) PAINT You may want to spray paint the outside of the box black.

METHOD B STEP 4) Hole for plug

Cut a small hole on the side to pull the plug and cord through the box.

METHOD B STEP 5) Light it up

Once you have the image taped to the box, get some of your white Christmas lights out of storage. If they’re all tangled up like mine are every year, that's perfect. Just shove 'em into the box and make sure they're spread out somewhat evenly. Get an extension cord to plug them in.

METHOD B STEP 6) TAPE the print to the box.

METHOD B STEP 7) TAPE the contraption to the window using packing tape.

If you want an EXTRA BIG effect, separate the eyes across two nearby windows.

Remember, you can do this trick with different pairs of eyes in many different windows or doors or any location throughout your house or yard!

Get your EYEs here: http://booityourself.com/HalloweenEyes/

For ANIMATED EYES and other spooktacular Halloween Decorations and Halloween Special Effects please visit BigScreamTV.com and for Fangtastic Halloween Freebies visit BooItYourself.com

Wednesday, September 29, 2010

Halloween Graveyard - Make Your Own Tombstones

Make Your Own Tombstones!

If you really want to make your Halloween Party or Halloween display for trick-or-treat the talk of the graveyard, you can fill your cemetery with inexpensive, easy-to-make headstones handcrafted by you! You can make an entire graveyard of Halloween headstones for the cost of one store-bought headstone!

Step 1) Call your local home center (Home Depot, Lowes, etc.) and ask if they carry sheets of Styrofoam insulation. Even within the same franchise, some will and some will not. Half of our local Home Depots have it. Just call around.

Step 2) Get a kitchen knife and safely stow it in your car. You’ll see why in a moment.

Step 3) Head to the local home center with the Styrofoam insulation.

Step 4) Before you head over to get the insulation, grab a can or two of FLAT BLACK spray paint.

Step 5) Purchase several sheets of Styrofoam insulation. It comes in all sizes and thicknesses. The thicker, the better. You might also get some thinner stuff to add to the front of the main headstones (more later.) Some sheets are small, but others may be too big to fit into the car. Now that kitchen knife comes in handy. Even if you buy a gigantic 4 foot by 8 foot chunk of Styrofoam (VERY INEXPENSIVE) you can rough cut it into small squares that will fit in your car or trunk!

Step 6) If you need to, cut down the Styrofoam in the parking lot to fir it into your car, then drive your supplies home.

Step 7) When you get home, trace out a pattern. (Suggestion: leave the protective plastic coating that is on the Styrofoam on for drawing & cutting). Use that same kitchen knife to carefully and safely cut out several gravestone shapes. You might also choose to use a craft knife or box-cutter. Be VERY CAREFUL using these and ALWAYS CUT AWAY from your body. Be careful to never hold the Styrofoam by placing a hand underneath where the knife may cut through.

Step 8) Optional: Break off tiny pieces or carve out small cracks and edges to make the headstone “older” looking. (If you accidentally crack your headstone...no worries! Work that crack in!)

Step 9) Optional: For some DELUXE tombstones, take the thin Styrofoam sheets and cut out some shapes. You can cut out several squares and stick them to the bigger, thicker headstones to give a brick or block effect. Cut out a skull or other ornamentation while you're "at it!"

The best way to get ‘em to stick is to apply a little spray glue and then (and most importantly) take some small "finishing" nails or even straightened-out paper clips (anything small and rigid) and stick it through the small piece tacking it onto the big piece. You’re essentially “nailing” the brick to the headstone.

Step 10) Carve out any slogans of designs. A large black permanent marker (and we mean the GIANT ones) can also be used to literally carve words into the Styrofoam as the ink will melt the Styrofoam as it sets into it.

Step 11) Use spray paint to add the final touches to your tombstone. BE SURE TO SPRAY IN A WELL VENTILATED AREA! There's no need to be precise, a random uneven spray pattern will look more realistic. Simply "dusting" the Styrofoam will give the most "stone like" results. The Spray paint will unevenly melt and disintegrate the Styrofoam creating an incredibly realistic stone-like effect.

Step 12) Cut a few wire hangers and stretch them out into stakes. Stick one end into the bottom of the tombstone. When ready, stick the whole tombstone into the ground using the other end of the "stakes." If your tombstone is large and it's windy in your area, you may want to use larger, wooden garden stakes.

Step 13) "Set dressing!" Be sure to add some leaves and twigs around the base to add realism.

To see more amazing, simple, low cost to no cost projects, visit BooItYourself.com!

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Halloween Effects SCREAM MACHINE to Scare Innocent People

SCREAM MACHINE

This is one of our “scare tactics” Halloween Effects articles. If you’ve assembled the foot-sensor (light beam) that we discussed, you may want to use this siren based scream machine as the thing to get triggered. The bummer with most store-bought Halloween multimedia stuff is that it lacks real “gusto” when it comes to audio power. Although we are not going to create a typical Halloween sound (like a growl), this will create a sound that will scare most anybody. Halloween illusions are one thing, but you don’t want to make your sounds an illusion! All we need to do is get an alarm siren and a AC to DV power adapter that delivers the very same voltage needed to drive the siren. It’s that simple. You can then wire the siren to the adapter, and plug the adapter into your beam trigger.

Category: Scare-tactic, loud, noisy, tricky, Halloween effect

Skill level: Easy

Time needed: 5 minutes

Truthfully, the only complexity and work in this project is FINDING the two main ingredients either on-line, or perhaps at Radio Shack or Fry’s electronics.

Ingredients:

6-12 volt dc Siren (10 bucks)

AC-to-DC 6 or 9 or 12 volt adapter - 500 ma (7 bucks)

Total Price: $15-25.00

Either visit your local electronics vendor, or simply go to Amazon.com and search for “alarm siren.” You’ll get a lot to choose from. Each siren varies by sound, volume, price, and voltage needed. At the top of my Amazon search I got the $9.99 “Alarm Siren 5" 115 dB 12 VDC.”

I note that I will need a 12 volt power supply to “drive” or “power” this siren.

I next search 12 vdc power supply. I find one for $6.70.

When you finally get your two parts, the only “tricky” part will be to make sure that you connect the positive wire from the power adapter to the positive wire on your siren.

1) Use wire-cutters or scissors to cut-off the little jack that is at the end of the power adapter.

2) If the siren has a plug at the end of its wires, snip that off as well.

3) Strip the plastic/rubber from the ends of the wires to expose the actual wire.

4) You will twist one wire from the adapter to one wire from the siren.

5) You must experiment to find out which wire combinations make the siren squawk because you will most likely not know which wires are positive and which are negative. After twisting one set of wires together, just quickly touch the other two wires to see if the siren blasts. If not, switch the wires. Once you have the siren working, just use electrical tape to tape up your exposed wires. Plug your Halloween Noise “scream machine” into a trigger like the previous BLOG light beam foot sensor.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Swap your Wine Labels for a Make-Over in Halloween Party Fun!

If you want an all-around awesome Halloween party without leaving a single thing out, then be sure to make these crafty wine label replacements for the wine bottles that your guests will see. This will make an extraordinarily surprising Halloween Decoration at your Halloween Party. Give the guests something to scream about! It's the perfect touch for the party "with it all!"

Wine Bottle Make-Over!

The labels are perfect for your Red wines as the gimmick here is the labels are designed as though these bottles are filled with blood for the vampires to feast on. Although that sounds a little icky, and this surely is for adults (or older kids/teens---use grape juice bottles or non-alcoholic beverage bottles) it’s a fun/funny/clever trick that most people get a kick out of! We provide the artwork for many different types of “Bloodeaux” from the finest Veinyards! See! It’s a hilarious adventure in Puns! (And we have a few for white wines also!)

DOWNLOAD your labels (13 to choose from) at BooItYourself.com/wine OR SEE BELOW to DOWNLOAD some selects.

Choose your labels and print them out. Feel free to mix and match. The more labels, the more entertainments for the guests! You can either get inkjet paper that has the adhesive on the back (for making labels) or you can use spray glue (spray mount) to attach regular paper.

If you do not use the adhesive label paper, you will have many types of paper to choose from. You can choose different colors or fancy paper with textures and patterns. Most copy shops will even sell these to you in individual sheets and they will have a little binder full of selections to choose from.

Once you’ve chosen your paper and the labels, simple print the labels, cut them out, and paste them on. This is an extra “bite” of entertainment that will be a real hoot at your “you’ve thought of everything” Halloween party!

STEP 1- PRINT THE LABELS on inkjet or fancy textured paper.

STEP 2- CUT the labels out. (There are two per 8.5” x 11” sheet.)

Step 3- APPLY GLUE: If you are not using self-adhesive label-making paper, use spray glue (spray mount) on the back of the label. It’s best to apply this glue OUTDOORS and use another sheet of paper underneath to catch the overspray.

Step 4- PASTE ONTO BOTTLE: Carefully paste the label onto the bottle covering up the vineyard's label. Our labels are larger than most out there. If it doesn't not cover it, enlarge the image as you print it.