Every year our school hosts a Trunk or Treat and it’s my favorite event. It’s an easy, safe way for kids to trick-or-treat with classmates who live elsewhere, wear costumes, and enjoy a themed display that’s much simpler than decorating a whole house. One year we created an Inside Out trunk, and it was a huge hit.
Below I’ll walk through exactly how we built the memory orb display, the life-size console, and how we organized candy and prizes to make the booth interactive and memorable.
How To: Inside Out Trunk or Treat Memory Display
Riley’s memory orbs make the perfect trunk backdrop and are easy to recreate with cardboard and plastic ball-pit balls. Add a PVC “recall tube” if you want a fun way to drop treats to kids.
This project is portable and inexpensive, and the result reads clearly as Inside Out HQ even from a distance.
You’ll need:
- Two large sheets of cardboard
- Purple spray paint
- Bright poster board
- Small wooden dowels and flat wooden beads sized to the dowels
- Plastic ball pit balls
- Battery-powered tube lights
- Wide PVC pipe + 90° PVC elbow (size based on your trunk)
- Pencil
- Utility or craft knife
- Hot glue
- Zip ties and/or command hooks
Step-by-Step Tutorial
- Cut one cardboard sheet to fit snugly inside the back of your trunk. Cut the second sheet into 4″ wide strips.
- On the full sheet, draw a curved zigzag pattern to form tunnels for the memory orbs — make the channels about 3.5″ wide and evenly spaced. Cut this piece out and save it; it will serve as the back of the tunnel.
- Hot-glue the 4″ strips along the curved cutout, bending them to follow the arcs so the tunnel has depth.
- Attach the saved curved piece to the back of those strips to form the tunnel’s rear wall.
- Glue your PVC pipe pieces together to create a recall tube.
- Spray-paint the assembled cardboard tunnel and the PVC pieces purple for a cohesive look.
- Cut gear shapes from colorful poster board to decorate the console area.
- If you want moving gears, glue a wooden bead to each poster-board gear, insert a dowel through the cardboard, and secure the dowel’s back end inside another flat bead without gluing it to the cardboard — this lets the gear rotate. For stationary gears, glue them directly down.
- Hot-glue the plastic balls into the tunnel channels. If you plan to reuse the balls, use a removable but strong adhesive instead.
- Secure tube lighting along the tunnel using hot glue, command hooks, or zip ties depending on whether you want to remove the lights later.
- Attach the PVC recall tube to the side of the cardboard with hot glue or zip ties.
- When finished, place the display in your trunk and use zip ties to secure it to trunk hooks or hinges for safety.
Creating a Life Size Inside Out Console
The console is the star of Inside Out HQ. You can recreate a life-size console using corrugated plastic, cardboard, or foam core and lots of bottle caps. Adding battery puck lights makes it interactive so kids can press buttons and trigger a prize.
What You’ll Need:
- Large white corrugated plastic, cardboard, or foam core sized for your space (make sure it fits in your car)
- Many bottle caps in assorted sizes and colors
- Silver and black paint or permanent markers
- Cardboard scraps
- Mini wooden dowels
- White battery puck lights (optional) and colorful tissue paper
- Pencil
- Craft or utility knife
- Hot glue gun
- Spray paint (for painting some caps if desired)
- Folding table that supports the console without sticking out too far
- White spandex tablecloth
- Velcro, command strips, zip ties, or tape to secure the console
Step-by-Step Tutorial
- Cut a large kidney-shaped piece from your chosen material to form the console surface.
- Sketch where buttons and silver panels should go, using the movie console as reference.
- Paint or color silver sections to create spaces for grouped buttons and to mimic the original design.
- Spray-paint any bottle caps you want to change color. Use a range of colors — black, white, red, yellow, green, orange, blue, purple — and create some larger buttons from painted cardboard scraps.
- If using puck lights, unscrew each one and place a sheet of colored tissue just under the dome to tint the light, then reassemble.
- Glue some bottle caps to short dowels if you want lever-like buttons that stick up from the surface.
- Arrange buttons and lights on the console until you’re happy with the layout. Glue bottle caps and attach puck lights (many have adhesive backs) in stable center areas where kids will press them.
- At the event, set up your folding table and cover it with the spandex tablecloth to create a smooth, professional-looking base.
- Place the console on the table and secure it using tape, Velcro strips, or zip ties so it won’t shift while kids interact with it.
Candy and Prizes for an Inside Out Trunk or Treat
We made our booth interactive by letting each child press one of nine puck lights — one for each character — then choose a color-coordinated prize from a matching bucket hidden behind the console.
If you have more space, display the prize buckets beside your trunk; otherwise hiding them behind the console keeps the area tidy.
Candy suggestions by character/color:
- Joy: Swedish Fish, Laffy Taffy
- Sadness: Mini Oreos, Sour Gummy Worms, Blue Airheads
- Anger: Kit Kats, Twizzlers, 100 Grand, Skittles
- Fear: Nerds, Fruit Snacks
- Disgust: Sour Patch Kids, Caramel Apple Lollipops
- Envy: Nerds Clusters, Tropical Skittles
- Embarrassment: Nerds, Nerds Clusters, Laffy Taffy
- Ennui: Mini Oreos, Fruit Snacks
- Anxiety: Jolly Rancher Lollipops, Nerds Clusters, Reese’s
Extras that work for multiple characters include themed stickers, color-changing stress balls, and mini lollipops.
Setting Up Your Trunk or Treat Display
Place the memory orb display inside your trunk and turn on the battery lights. Set up the folding table in front, cover it with the spandex tablecloth, and attach the console securely on top.
Position your treat buckets to the side or behind the console so kids can pick a prize after pressing a light. Play the Inside Out soundtrack from your phone to complete the atmosphere.
Inside Out 2 Costumes
Dressing up as the characters makes the booth feel authentic and excites kids. Creating simple character costumes for your family helps sell the theme and adds to the photo ops.
Inside Out Birthday Party Ideas
If you want to reuse these elements, the memory orb tunnel and console make great decorations for an Inside Out birthday party. They’re easy to adapt for larger spaces and will look great as a photo backdrop or interactive activity station.
Have fun building your Inside Out trunk — it’s a crowd-pleasing theme that’s creative, colorful, and interactive.