Neon Jesus

Ani Akopyan from Holy Redeemer/St. James the Less Catholic Church in La Crescenta, CA brings us this winter look.

From Ani: This design was for our Youth Ministry program (called Life Teen) for the Winter Retreat. It was a temporary set up at a meeting space at a camp we rented in Calabasas, CA. Theme of the weekend was “More” which was a space themed retreat.

Screens:
Stretch screens were custom made many years ago from extra wide stretch fabric we found in the fashion district in downtown Los Angeles. It was custom fabric that was made for a movie but was never picked up. We bought the roll for about $200. A family at our church owned a clothing company and kindly donated their services to cut and stitch the screens then add eyelets. We hung them using a combination of rope and bungee cords. The bottoms are weighted down by sandbags. We rented ultra bright projectors for the weekend and rear projected the images on them. We have also used regular projectors on them before as well and they still work. We just knew some of the images with the stars would be darker so we wanted to make sure you would be able to see it all.

“JESUS” Neon Sign:
Used a 8ft by 4ft sheet of plywood (about 1/2″ thick) ($25) and projected the “JESUS” lettering on it and traced it with a pencil. Then used a jig saw to cut out the design. Then brackets for LED rope were drilled on (Some come with LED rope but we had to order an extra pack $20). The whole thing was spray painted white. Then the LED rope (about $50 on Amazon) was threaded through the brackets. For the stand, we used left over black PVC pipes to construct 3 legs. 3 brackets were drilled in at the tops so that the LED sign can sit on a lip and hang.

Balloon Grid (On the sides):
We ordered 30 (15 on each side) 36inch Star Quadrangle Mylar balloons (about $50). We filled them with just air (Using small handheld air pumps) taped them together in the corners then used fishing line to secure them to weights at the bottom and strung the top together and hung it all from the ceiling.

Gobo Lights (On the ceiling on the sides):
Those were cheap DIY lights we ordered from Amazon at about ($30) each. They come with transparency paper that you can print your image on. It’s not the clearest Gobo but for us it was enough. Usually these are used to project Christmas or Halloween images on houses.

Snow Lights (Projected on ceiling):
We wanted a disco ball originally (make the room look like there were stars) but couldn’t find anything cheap and we couldn’t hang it either. I found a “Snow Projector” on Amazon for about $25 and the effect looked very similar to a disco ball so we bought 2 of them. They are also typically used for exterior Christmas decor.

Silver Streamer Curtains:
Finally we ordered some Silver Streamer curtains (about $15 for 12 feet, we ordered enough for about 60 feet so about $75) to cover the ugly brick walls in the room and give it more of an immersive effect.