Tried this thing I’ve recently come in contact with; shaping the out-of-focus light dots that show up when taking photographs. Simple enough as a first test, I just cut round pieces of black paper that fit onto the plastic lens shader on my nikkor 35mm 1.8. At the center I cut shapes, just by hand for this first test. See the results below. Some lessons learned are: the shape of the cutout is really what you get so If you want a “pretty” heart, better have a nice stencil and a sharp cutter. Mine look like shite.
Street light
Christmas lights