[MadCityHaunt]

Hey guys, I needed some cheap lights asap for our generator room in the haunt and didn't want to spend any real money on them. This is what I came up with:

The bowls are from the dollar store 3 packs.
The lids are from Great Stuff cans.
The elbow and 8" pipe are PVC I had in the garage.
and the LEDs are GhostLight Micro Ambers I got from Halloween FX Props

1. All you need to do is drill a hole the size of a nickel in the bottom of the bowl to run the barrel plug on the light through. Then add one small screw hole in the front of the bowl to mount the light. (I painted the inside of the bowl first)
2. Trace the elbow piece on the Great Stuff caps and dremmel out. Add a small notch to that hole to run your wire through.
3. Glue it all together as pictured and zip tie your wire to the 8" PVC piece.
4. Mask off the light and connector end as needed and paint. I did black primer with a dusting of platinum and then used Iron B rust paint from Sculpt Nouveau, but any rusting technique will work.
5. Once it drys you are ready to plug and play.
6. You can mount these really easy to walls by buying PVC flanges from the hardware store.

The fixture cost about $1.50 to make and the GhostLight Micro Ambers were $8.95. These are really quick to build and took about an hour for both. Here are some of the finished pictures from this morning after the rust had kicked in overnight.

Hope this comes in handy for some people!

 

[Trex]

Amazing job, they look so real! Thanks for the tutorial as well, I need something like this over our "red" door. I am going to give this a try!!

 

[Grey Lady]

So imaginative, nice work! Love the ideas I get here

 

[SpookyDude44]

Great job on the detail work! They look fantastic and the paint job really sells the effect.

 

[mementomori]

that looks amazing!

 

[Danski]

Top notch. That turned out extremely realistic.

 

[Fright Nite]

Very nice! How's the inside setup?

 

[dawnski]

What? Those are so awesome!!

Hey Danski, we should be friends! I'm only one letter off.

 

[Danski]

What? Those are so awesome!!

Hey Danski, we should be friends! I'm only one letter off.

We are friends- everyone here is my friend. I'm pretty sure at least. LOL.

 

[theundeadofnight]

Nice . Great re-purpose of the Dollar store stuff . Thanks for the inspiration .

 

[MadCityHaunt]

Thanks so much all!

Fright Nite, the Ghostlight has a small mounting bracket attached to the light. I just made one small screw hole on the front of the bowl to mount the bracket using a nut and bolt. Then I am still able to position the light inside the fixture to get the best lighting angle in the haunt since the light has a tiny thumbscrew on it. Works great in haunts and yard display since it can re-positioned so easily!

I will post any updates on other small prop projects I am doing for our haunt along with How-To's for some of the quick and cheap solutions for things.

 

[WickedWino]

Wow - those are great lights! That rust paint is amazing. Thanks for sharing!

 

[creeplights]

oh wow, that is frickin' amazing. I'm actually trying to get some ideas early this year for halloween lighting.

One thing I would suggest is if anybody wanted to use 120V lights in these instead of 12V, try the LED "filament" candelabra bulbs. Make sure they are rated at 2200K-2500K color temperature and they'll give a golden output that is less a "pure" amber and more an old-style 1940s incandescent white... kinda like horror movies where there's a barn featured. That kind of light, and the bulbs look like bare glass, no weird LED electronic base.