Theme-Setting 101: Lights Continued

In the last post we really only discussed lighting basics: 1) Even if you do no other decorating, at least put up some lights, they are your biggest decor bang for the buck, and 2) Even simple lighting efforts can be quite effective – my favorite all-purpose tool are strings of plain white minilights.

However, there is of course so much more you can do with just lights and a couple of props:

For instance, in Post #3 I put a picture of a silhouette decoration – in this case a zombie staggering through a graveyard. A decoration like this effectively covers a good portion of wall (or in our case, a water heater that makes an unsightly addition to a party space), is still cheap to execute, and still uses those string lights.

In our case, we used a Japanese shoji screen we got for $20 bucks at a yard sale, but one could also achieve a similar effect by making a simple wood frame to fit the space you want to fill, and then stretching an old, clean sheet over it and tacking it down so the sheet is taut over the frame.

Then, the real fun begins. Decide what sort of silhouette image you want to project, and with a roll of butcher paper (also cheap), sketch out that image lightly with pencil, as you will most likely need to redraw portions until you get the look you want. In the case of the zombie no real drawing skill was needed; I just had our son pose lying down on the paper and traced around him. For our mermaid, I Googled on the words ‘mermaid’ and ‘silhouette’, and soon had a number of images to work from – with some effort (and a good eraser) I was eventually able to scale one up to almost-life-size on butcher paper, and cut out my pencil drawing.

Once you have your silhouette paper cutout, take it outside or to your shop, and spray-paint one side of it matte black. If you don’t, the image will not be dark enough to cast a good shadow through your screen. In our case, I use a combination of Scotch tape and thumbtacks (use the flat-head kind, thumbtacks with more height will cast shadows of their own behind the screen, and spoil your image) to attach the image to the back of the screen. For attaching an image to a sheet on a simple frame, without the grid of wooden frames provided by a shoji screen, you’ll probably have to go with just the Scotch tape.

Now its time to hang up your lights. In the area behind where you will place your silhouette screen, zigzag light strings back and forth so your screen will be well backlit. Prop the screen up in front of the lights, turn them on, and make adjustments to light placement as necessary to make sure your handiwork shows up well. Done!

An undersea tiki bar.  Note the mermaid silhouette to the right.  Cheap,
but effective camouflage for a water heater and furnace.