Here is a sampling of craft projects for Halloween 2023 that I made with wife help. Click on a picture to see a full size image. Sorry for the terrible image quality.

Transmutation Circle

Materials:

• Charcoal chalk
• LED Candles
• Magnet Wire
• Wemos D1 controller running WLED
• Straight edge, vinyl stencils, wire/compass.

It is kinda surreal to see this in real life. This thing is big enough to create a human from raw elements! I’m hoping this is real enough to scare adults.

The candles add a lot to the effect. Using magnet wire and the controller means I can remote-control them and not worry about batteries.

LED Leaf Wreath

Materials:

• Wreath frame
• Tree trimmings
• RGB LED Strip
• Wemos D1 controller
• Flat speaker wire

This wreath is made out of trimmings from the tree outside. The inner loop has a string of LED lights that I can tune for different occasions. I used very flat white speaker wire (very hard to see) to power the thing.

I think every door deserves a wreath.

Undersea Jack-O-Lantern

Materials:

• Pumpkin
• White LED Strips
• Parchment paper diffuser

I used Dall-E to create a image. The exact prompt I used was “20000 leagues under the sea scene in stencil form”.

In the end I only used the resulting image as inspiration to make my own undersea-scape using standard pumpkin carving tools.

I wouldn’t say this pumpkin was my best work.

Set (Game) Costume

Materials:

• Scrap corrugated sign board from COVID-19 posters
• Vinyl
• (Banana for scale)

My wife’s math department is doing coordinated Halloween costumes this year: Set Cards.

While I’m sure other teachers will have fabric paint and printer paper taped to shirts, my wife will have larger-than-life hyper-realistic replicas of her assigned card.

My goal is to get a cease and desist.

Trick-Or-Treat Sign

Materials:

• Pallet wood
• EL Wire
• Permanent Marker
• Vinyl stencil

Just permanent marker on wood is surprisingly effective when used with a vinyl stencil. All my vinyl cutting is done with an original Silhouette Portrait.

Just trying to make it as obvious as possible that our house is ready for trick-or-treaters.

Hopefully the Transmutation circle and noise isn’t too scary!