Well, not necessarily doom.  Maybe it is a happy glowing eyeball.  Your call!  Either way, they’re fun and easy to make.  I had a group of 4^th and 5^th graders make a bunch for one of our first BOOOk Fairs.  They loved it.  I can honestly say that I have never seen such diverse eyeballs in my life.  These are fast, easy and striking: a lot of bang for your buck.

You need:

Ping pong balls

LED tealights

An exacto knife or sharp blade

A good set of fine-line Sharpies or other markers
or          
Some eyeball images for inspiration

What you do:

Usually there is a part of the ping pong ball that has some printing on it.  This will be the bottom of your eyeball, so the writing stays hidden.

Right where this printing is, make a little “X” in the bottom of your ping pong ball with your knife.  The plastic is pretty tough – kind of push the blade in and out a few times to make your X.  Of course, you do this part if you’ve got kids.  This X is where you will insert the “flame” of the tealight when you are finished decorating it.

Decorate your eyeball.  I start with a black pupil with a white highlight in it: outline a little white crescent-shaped section in black, and color the black around it.

Next, pick your iris color.  I went green this time.  Draw one green circle a little space away from your black center.  Draw another green circle out from that about the same distance apart.  Color green in the space between your black pupil and the first green circle.

Now make some highlights, by drawing little connecting lines between your green colored space and your outer green circle.

Add some extra green coloring on the outside of your outer circle.  This is starting to sound like one of those profoundly annoying teacher exercises in giving precise directions, but just follow the pictures – this is much easier and faster than it sounds in writing.

Draw a black circle outside your outermost green section.  Color black in the space between the green and the outer black circle.

Now, go all free-form and make some red blood vessels on the white sclera.  Did you just learn a word? 🙂  Make sure your veins go all the way to the back and around – you don’t want to have a one-sided eyeball.

Push the tealight flame through the X you cut in the bottom.  You will end up making a hole, and that is o.k.

Turn on your tealight  – I’m using some cool flickering red ones for this project, but the regular white ones will show the color on the eyes better – drape some creepy cloth or black fabric or spider webbing around the base if you like to disguise the light and you have your Glowing Eyeball of Doom.  Or Joy.

        

Get crazy with it: try using that orange ping pong ball that comes along.  Try flames instead of blood vessels.  Use metallic markers.  You could even try painting the eyeballs with a tempera paint wash and go for green or yellow reptilian ones.    Have fun!