Christmas projection mapping ideas: 8 displays you can make with one projector

Christmas projection mapping ideas don't need a big house or a big budget. The best ones use something you already have, a box, a window, a door, and fit light to its exact shape so it looks like part of the decoration rather than a picture thrown at a wall. In the clip beside this article, two plain cardboard boxes become wrapped presents with nothing but a projector and an iPhone running EasyMapper Studio.

Here are eight ideas, roughly from easiest to most ambitious. Each one uses the same steps: add a layer per surface, drag its corners onto the real edges, then play something festive on it.

Stack two or three cardboard boxes of different sizes under the tree or by the door. Map each visible face of each box, then play a Christmas shader on all of them: Christmas Baubles, Christmas Tartan Stars, Christmas Trees or Candy Snowflakes. Pick the shader once, tap every face, and the pattern wraps the boxes like paper.

It's the quickest idea here and the one guests photograph. Light-coloured boxes show the colours best. The projection mapping box guide has the full setup.

Yes, and it's what makes projected presents better than real paper. Use scenes: put a different shader on the boxes in each scene, then switch between them live from the scene menu. Baubles while guests arrive, tartan with dessert.

Hang a white sheet or close a light blind in a front window and project onto it from inside. From the street it looks like the scene is in the room: falling snow, a figure at the glass, or a slowly scrolling Christmas pattern. Use videos with a black background so only the scene glows.

The window projector guide shows this setup for Halloween; for Christmas, only the content changes. Christmas projection videos covers where to find window scenes.

Map the door as one layer and play Christmas Tartan Stars or Candy Snowflakes on it. Add a second, thin layer across the middle with a photo of a ribbon and the door reads as a wrapped gift. It's one of the few outdoor ideas that works with a small projector, because a door is a small surface.

Light the wall behind the tree with a slow pattern so the tree stands out in silhouette, or map shelves, frames and the TV as separate surfaces with something different on each. The how to projection map a room guide shows the steps.

Map each window, the door and the garage as separate layers and give each its own content: a scene in the windows, a present on the door, snow on the garage. This needs a brighter projector (3,000 lumens or more for a facade) and somewhere dry for it. The Christmas projection mapping house guide goes surface by surface.

Map a frame, a chimney breast or a white board and play a slideshow of this year's photos, or your kids' drawings. Anything in your camera roll can play inside a layer, and you can stack a Christmas shader on top with low opacity for a festive border.

Yes. Stack visuals on one surface and adjust each one's opacity, speed and colour until they blend, then use different stacks on different surfaces. A window with snowfall over a dark blue shader, presents in tartan, and a door in baubles is a full display from one projector.

All eight start the same way. Get EasyMapper Studio, pick the easiest surface you have, and make it glow tonight. The Christmas projection mapping app page covers the built-in Christmas content.