DIY Ping Pong Ball Cafe Lights
Right now Edie sleeps with us in our bedroom. Sometimes she actually sleeps with us in bed in a LulyBoo (love that portable thing) and other times she sleeps in this cradle above in the corner by the door to the sunroom where the rest of her nursery is (see the full nursery tour here). Because this is a small space I wanted to make it special and thought some colorful cafe lights might do the trick!
Did you know you can make these cafe lights from a strand of LED lights and ping pong balls? It will cost you about $16 with plenty of extra ping pongs to spare for another strand. The LED part is crucial- don’t use regular twinkle lights. LED lights don’t get hot and so it’s safe to add the plastic balls.
I really love how they turned out. My hope was that filtering the colored lights through the white ping pong balls would create a pretty pastel color and it totally did, which I was pleased with.
In the daytime the cafe lights look pastel but at night they get more vivid- almost primary colors. Edie is mesmerized by them! Because they’re LED you can make them dance and sparkle and flicker all you want. It’s kind of enough to give you a seizure so I like to keep them on either constant or slow fade. Edie prefers slow fade too. Last night these lights were what relaxed her enough to finally fall asleep after a good long crying spell.
See how to make them after the jump…
Photography and styling by Liz Stanley. Assisted by Sara Albers. Graphics by Loren Croiser
Supplies:
Multicolored LED lights ($6 for a string of 100)
Ping pong balls ($10 for a bag of 144)
Exact-o knife
Directions: (see written below)
1. With an exact-o knife make a very small cut along the seam of the ping pong ball about 1/4 inch wide or smaller. Cut another across the first to make a very small cross shape cut.
2. Wiggle the ball onto a bulb.
3. Be careful to not handle the balls too much when you wiggle it onto the bulbs. They do tend to get squished. Although when doing this whole strand we only squished 2 or 3.
And one more of Edie Jean in all smiles:
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