Here’s the gift I made for my coworker Gary as a Secret Santa present. He’s really into Predator, and has a couple of Predator action figures on his desk. I figured it would be pretty cool to make a little “home” for his Predator that let him change its environment now and then. To make it, I spray painted a normal cardboard box black, then punched holes all around the interior lip, and strung a string of tiny LED lights around the box, punching one through each hole. I taped the box flaps back with duck tape, then wound duck tape (neatly) around the entire exterior of the box to make it strong.

My boss was awesome enough to let me use some nice cardstock paper to print out several different backgrounds that can be inserted into the box – I found photos of a jungle scene (like in the original Predator movie), the Eastern Columbia Building in LA (from Predator 2), a snowy terrain (from Alien vs. Predator, though it turns out that Gary HATES that movie…I love it, but whatever), and a basic space scene. I also found some cute and inexpensive holiday finery for the box, including a little black Christmas tree with sparkly “snow”, and two clip on ornaments with silver balls surrounded by sparkly black fronds. To cap it off, I gave Predator his own Christmas stocking.

Everyone loved the present, and it was informally voted “Best in Show” – not that we even had a show, but whatever. I enjoyed making it, and Gary enjoyed playing around with it, so that’s all that matters.