For a fun decoration for the Pioneer Festival, I made the moon. I used foam insulation and made a circle with string and a sharpie pen.

I cut out the circle with a heavy duty hot knife, which made the cutting (melting) very easy. Always cut outside in a well ventilated and heat resistant area. (I was very glad I did, the fumes and heat are no joke.)

To hide the duct tape and give a visually solid surface, I used spray adhesive to cover the front with kraft paper, then on that adhered an old white sheet.

To give an even edge, I trimmed the sheet about three inches from the edge of the foam board, flipped it over, and baste stitched the fabric with upholstery thread to make an even gather.

I put another layer of security on the fabric by adding duct tape to the back to keep it in place.

To give the moon a glow, I primed the cotton fabric with pearlescent acrylic paint. I had an interesting discovery: the kraft paper and fabric layers reacted to the paint differently and created an uneven surface. For the moon this is a great result, but for any other project where a smooth surface is needed, it would be vexing. Good thing I was making the moon.

I used my laser cutter to make a stencil (free stencil here).

I experimented with several lights trying to get one that didn’t disperse so much that the light cast onto the surface was unusable, and finally settled on my phone flashlight, which still dispersed the image, but I could get the general shapes pencilled in on the moon shape (but no pictures because my phone had a different purpose.) I painted the moon face with gray and black acrylic paint, and added a shadow to indicate more craters.

Did I get a picture of the moon installed at the festival? No, I was too busy spinning, lol. But it did look the part where they hung it.