Wow! So, I’ve been out of the country, fire dancing at a theme park in Japan, for most of the winter. I’m back now and I got an embroidery machine for Christmas, which I haven’t even taken out of the box yet, because of the aforementioned Japan trip.
Just before we left, I made a bunch of gorgeous fairy lights and hung them from my ceiling:
I got some colored bottles and covered them with iridescent cellophane, using mod podge and a heat gun. I’ve had the mod podge for EVER and was never quite sure what to do with it. This was an excellent application, I think.
Then, I took some leather scraps and cut them and tied them around the cellophane-covered bottles. I filled the first couple of prototype fairy bottles with a battery-operated LED strand with about 8 lights on it. I pushed the cork in and braided the LED cord in with leather cord wrapped around the neck of the bottle, and now the battery pack can get wrapped around a belt and the fairy bottle dangles from my waist. It’s an incredibly awesome costume accessory!
Here I am sporting 2 fairy bottles at the Dickens Fair with Nick in all his steampunk finery.
The little ones worked so well that I wanted to make some bigger, more permanent ones. I asked for (and received!) a fantastic strand of multi-color, color changing LEDs for Christmas. It was a bit of a project, but I made 10 more fairy bottles of varying sizes and colors and soldered together a bunch of lead wire between the LEDs before enclosing the LEDs inside the bottles. This was a bit of a project – I am not the world’s best solder-artist, though I’m probably a bit further up the ranks after doing all those connections.
At the end of it all, though, my fairy bedroom now sports 10 color-changing LED fairy lights – 4 at the corners of my hanging bed and 6 more around the room. I even have a remote control to turn them on and off, and to change between the colors. I can pick one color or get them to softly cycle through the rainbow.
There will be more LED projects in the future! LEDs are neat. 🙂
Edit: there have indeed been more LED projects. Latest is my 3d printed Fairy Lights wall sconce, which just goes beautifully with my fairy bottle lights. LEDs RULE!!
Want to see more? Support me over at Patreon.com and let me know you want MORE FAIRY LIGHTS! I will make some of these for sale for patrons-only.
