Witches' Brew

It's easy and inexpensive to make a backlit display like this. It's also a good way to reuse those old incandescent mini-lights that you retired from your light show years ago.

Materials:

• Large cardboard box (I secured an old refrigerator box from Lowe's for free - they normally recycle them.)
• 2 cans of spray automobile undercoating or truck liner. (This thick paint protects the cardboard from weather while also covering any box printing)
• Graphic of witches and a cauldron scraped from the Internet.
• A couple strings of 100-count incandescent mini-lights. I mixed strings of yellow and orange.
• A few strips of 1"x 2" lumber (the backing for the cardboard to hold it up and staple the mini-lights to)

Tools necessary

• Box cutter or other sharp tool for cutting cardboard
• Staple gun and staples
• Marking pen
• Disposable drop cloths for painting
• Optional: video projector for enlarging the graphic onto the cardboard for tracing it out

Basic assembly

• Cut the cardboard box open so it can lay flat. Straighten the corner bends as best possible and tape it to a wall.
• Use a video projector to enlarge the chosen graphic onto the cardboard box. Trace the outline of the image.
• Cut the image out of the cardboard
• Use the staple gun to mount the cutout onto strips of 1x2 wood.
• Spray the front of the cutout with the undercoating or truck liner paint. Spray the back for extra protection. Let dry.
• Carefully staple the light strings onto the wood strips on the back side.
• Stand it up against the garage door and plug it in.

For an extra effect, you might use an ultraviolet LED light strip attached to a 1/2" PVC tube and mounted on the eave above the door to provide a contrasting purple glow, or use a smoke generator to pump smoke from behind the display. Both of those effects were used in the photo above.