I saw this idea in a magazine forever ago (and I cannot remember for the life of me which magazine it was). I loved it and filed it away mentally – and finally tried it out this weekend.
It's so simple: Take some themed cupcake liners (like these orange numbers with bats), punch a hole in the middle, and push them onto the bulbs of string lights. Voila! Super cute lights!
These festive numbers are perfect for Halloween, but these lights would work for all kinds of holidays. Red, white, and blue liners for Fourth of July? Heart liners for Valentine's Day? Love it.
Here's what it takes:
Themed "Lampshade" String Lights
- One string of 50 white lights (white or green cord, your choice)
- Cupcake liners in color or print of your choosing (I picked my liners up at Target. They had a few to choose from.)
- Phillips head screwdriver for poking the holes (I know there must be a better way, but this is how I did it, and it worked just fine).
- First, put your lights up.
- Place about 20 of the liners on a flat surface you don't mind poking (or on a magazine or piece of cardboard).
- Poke the screwdriver into the middle of the cupcake liners, until it pokes all the way through. You want a hole big enough so you can slip the liner all the way over the light, but not so big the liners are going to fall off.
- Do this with the rest of the liners.
- Slip one liner onto each light, all the way back past the bulb to the main wire.
- Dress it up even more with garland, if you want.
That's it!
Here are ours after we put the garland on. That's Tigger on the bottom right. Better known as "His Highness."
Love 'em.
