VORTEX EFFECT

As your trick or treaters walk into your foggy yard, ahead of them is a swirling vortex glowing the air.

This is a really eerie effect that is guaranteed to impress your trick or treaters. And it requires only a few items to create.

Holiday Light Projector
Fog Machine
Black Construction Paper

Holiday Light Projectors are those lighting devices used to project a festive image onto the side of your house, your garage door, or just about any flat surface.

They can be found at most department stores during the Halloween and Christmas seasons, and generally cost anywhere from $30.00 to $50.00. These consumer versions usually have a 50 watt light bulb that has just enough power to create the desired effect. They come with an assortment of round film images that project different pictures.

Fog machines like the FogFX fog machine work great and are available through our Got Fog? website. You'll also want to get a Timer Remote so you don't have to continually run back and forth clicking the standard remote button.

You can create a vortex of just about any color but using the blue creates an ethereal look, while green generates what we call the "X-file" look, red is good for a demonic look, etc.

While the instructions below are for the particular image projector we used, the Holiday Projector from Mr. Christmas, the method should be similar for any brand.

First, select from the film images included with your image projector, one with a background color you would like the vortex color to be (we used blue). The image film is the transparent part inside the outer circle that has the actual image on it. Now, you need to block the picture part of the film image with a paper circle so that it does not show in the projected image. The paper circle needs to be about a quarter of an inch smaller than the film (image) portion.

Using a ruler, measure the diameter of the image film within the outer circle. Ours measured 1-1/8", so we needed a 7/8" paper disc to cover the actual image. Now draw the circle (7/8" in our case) on a piece of black book cover paper or construction paper, using a compass. We chose black book paper because it is thin, yet still opaque, but you could use any similar material at hand. Carefully cut out the circle from the black book paper.