Severed Limbs Costume Contest Trophies

I’m so excited to post my first (of many) Halloween DIY projects for the season! Today, I’m going to share with you a quick, easy, and inexpensive way to reward your party goers with memorable trophies. We made these trophies last year for our Mad Scientist Halloween Party on what I like to call the 11th hour. We always work on projects up until just an hour or so before our parties. I took the final photos of the trophies in the craft room before I brought them out to aware to our fellow creative friends. Each year we have a costume contest and giveaway prizes. In past years, we’ve purchased $5 and $10 gift cards to a local ice cream place or burger joint. $5  goes to Funniest Costume & Most Creative Costumes and the $10 gift card goes to Best Couple. Last year, in hopes to save a little money we made these funny and commemorative trophies to hand out. I think everyone LOVED how creative the trophies were. I can’t take all the credit for this brilliant idea. I found this last year over at Dollar Store Crafts who was featuring Very Vegan Holiday’s rendition of these trophies. You’ll notice we modified ours to fit our needs. To be honest–the sky is the limit with these limbs!

Supplies:

• Scrap Wood
• Table Saw
• Router
• Minwax Stain, Mahogany
• 3 Severed Hands (Dollar Store)
• 1 Severed Foot (Dollar Store)
• Silver Metallic RustOleum Spray Paint
• Drop Cloth
• Drill
• 1 Long Dowel
• All-Purpose Adhesive
• Label for Award

Once you’ve cut, routed, and stained the piece of scrap wood (not pictured) it’s time to drill the holes and attach the severed hand (and other limbs) on to the wood plaque. You’ll also want to cut down the wood dowel to be just long enough to stabilize the inside of the hand and about a half in to go inside the wood plaque (not pictured).

Next up, using your drill, carefully begin to drill a hole in the bottom of the severed limb. You will need to drill a hole to the size of your dowel.

Once you’ve made a hole in the severed hand, place the dowel in the hand.

Then, drill the same size hole into the piece of wood (not pictured). You’ll have your severed hand with dowel in it and your drilled piece of wood.

Place the severed hand (dowel) into the piece of drilled wood.

The trophy is almost complete. Using Microsoft Word I created a print out that I adhered to each of the trophies. I adhered it with hot glue. (Trophy print out not pictured). 

Here is what the finished trophies look like.

For the best couples costume trophy we drilled two holes in the wood,  leaned the hands together and then placed a little all-purpose glue near the finger tips to secure the hands.

For the funniest costume trophy we drilled one hole in the heal of the foot and kept the dowel long enough inside the ankle of the foot so that the foot could balance. We also placed a little all-purpose glue on the ball of the foot to secure it.

Trophies pictured:

• Best Couples Costume
• Funniest Costumes
• Most Creative Costumes

So, do you think you’ll be making these for your Halloween party this year?

Linked to: Home Stories A to Z, Not Just a Housewife