Sign with Lights for Halloween

Every year our church group has a 'Trunk-or-Treat' where the neighbors pull their cars into the church parking lot, decorate their open trunks and the neighborhood kids trick-or-treat from trunk to trunk. It is a fun, safe activity. There are lots of creative trunks and this year I decided to have our theme be a cauldron store, a Cauldron Emporium. Since a store needs a sign to advertise, I thought it would be great to have a sign for "Clarke's Cauldron Emporium".

I wanted it to be a bit 1960s/Las Vegas so I wanted to have lights around the perimeter. I even thought of having it rotate but I was running short on time and winds were predicted for that evening so the rotating idea was dropped.

So here is how to make a fun battery-powered lighted sign, which can be for any occasion - this just happened to be for "Clarke's Cauldron Emporium" for Halloween.

If you want, this can be part of a 'decoration' The Cauldron Emporium.. Just add a bunch of cauldrons!

P.S. If you find the Instructables I post interesting please click the "Follow" button above. Thanks!

Supplies

1 or 2 sheets of black foam core board (depending on sign size)

2 Orange battery-powered LED light strings and batteries

2 Purple battery-powered LED light strings and batteries

Vinyl lettering and transfer tape

Black felt-tip marking pen

Silver or white, etc. colored pen to write on the black foam core

Tape (some type to hold the wires in place)

Double sided tape (optional)

Hot glue gun and glue sticks

Wire cutters

Cutting Machine (I used a Cricut and a 24" x 12" mat) - Not shown

Straight edge & round traceable things - Not shown

Bandsaw or razor knife - Not shown

Step 1: Design the Sign

Decide what you want your sign to say.

Since I was planning to have the sign consist of vinyl letters on black foam core board I used Cricut Design Space to design the sign.

Cricut Design Space was handy since it let me render the sign showing its actual dimensions. I sized the design based on the dimensions of the foam core board I had. The layout of the sign had two elements - a large rectangle and a small rectangle merged. I rounded the external corners of both.

I just visually picked what I thought looked good. You probably have a better artistic sense than I do!

Step 2: Layout Design on Foam Core Board

Since I don't have a laser cutter or CNC router I had to transfer the design to the foam board manually in order to cut it out.

I did this by measuring out the two elements of the sign, the large and small rectangles. I used a salad spinner basket for the rounded edges of the ends of the large rectangle. I used half of a ceramic bowl for the small rectangle merge to the top edge of the large rectangle. I often end up hunting all around the house to find the correct size circle template.

Step 3: Cut Foam Core Board to Size

My father always told me that a bandsaw is one of the most versatile power tools you can own, so I bought one as soon as I could. I used it to cut out the sign design. I stacked two sheets of foam board (held together with a few pieces of double-stick tape) and cut both sides of the sign at one time. You do have the option of using a razor knife or other method, of course.

Step 4: Cut Out Vinyl for the Sign

I used the Cricut cutting machine to cut out the self-adhesive vinyl lettering/art. Because the sign was so big I had to use a 12" x 24" cutting mat to accommodate the large size, although I could have used a 12"x12" mat and pieced the lettering together.

Step 5: Apply Vinyl Lettering to Foam Core & Blacken Edge

After removing the unwanted vinyl I used the transfer tape to move the vinyl to the foam board.

To make the sign look finished I blackened out the edge of the sign with a large black felt-tip marker.

Step 6: Arrange Low-Voltage LEDs Around Perimeter & Trim

I had decided that I wanted alternating purple and orange lights (it is for Halloween after all) around the perimeter. The lights were applied to the back half of the sign; the side without lettering. The lights will end up being positioned between the front and back pieces of foam board.

I started laying out the lights for the right side of the sign. I started at the bottom center of the sign with one orange string and taped each LED light into position, pulling the wiring between lamps taut as I went along the perimeter until I got to the top center of the sign. I then started with the purple lights positioning them between the orange lights so that I got that alternating orange-purple-orange, etc. effect I wanted. After the right side of the sign was done I repeated applying lights to the left side of the sign. Make sure when starting the left side at the bottom that you insure to maintain that orange-purple-orange arrangement.

At the top all four strings of lights meet and there will be extra lights (at least for my sign there was). I had from one to three extra lights per string after taping the strings down. I used wire cutters to trim off the extra lights. This is OK since I was using low-voltage LED lights powered by two AA batteries. Do NOT do this if using AC mains powered lights.

Step 7: Hot Glue LED Lights in Place

Transparent tape is OK to temporarily hold the lights in position but it is really not strong enough to insure that the lights stay in place for the life of the sign. In order to securely fasten the LED lights I applied hot glue to the lights at the edge of the foam board. This firmly attached them to the foam board.

Step 8: Cut Out Spacers & Glue in Place

Since the LEDs and wiring have thickness I didn't want to just try to hot glue the front of the sign directly to the back. The lights were about as thick as a sheet of foam core board so I decided to cut spacers out of scrap foam board and glue them between the front and back sides of the sign.

I cut out some spacers, applied hot glue and glued them to the sign back foam board inside the area marked out by the light wires.

Step 9: Glue Top in Place

It was time to glue the front and back of the sign together. I applied hot glue over the spacers and then, while aligning the front and back, placed the front onto the back and pressed it in place.

Step 10: Glue Battery Packs Onto Back

All four battery packs were glued to the back of the sign with the power switches and battery compartment covers accessible and some space between them in case one might need to be replaced. I did some wire management and taped down the wires leading from the edge of the sign to the battery packs. I hot glued the wires down near the perimeter to make sure they stayed put.