One of the hottest trending designs for homes today is string lights. String lights allow you to brighten up any area with simple light bulbs. While these are a great option for many people, they will run up your electricity bill for only appearance purposes. If you are looking for an alternative to costly string lights, you may have found the answer. One of the best alternatives to string lights is to use felt bulb garland.
This ground is a great alternative to string lights because it allows you to brighten up your home without having to run up your electricity bill. You can create these string felt lights on your own and can customize them to fit your exact taste and needs.
How to make felt bulb garland
For example, you have complete control over the colors that you use and the length of the string that you decide to make. Many string lights only come in a standard size of about six feet long. If your area is a little longer than this you are out of luck. Making your own felt bulb garland allows you to make the string any size you want and you do not need to rely on an outlet close by.
What Materials Will You Need?
Felt balls, jute string, hot glue, straws or felt cord If you are looking to make felt bulb garland, you will need about twenty to twenty five felt balls that are about one inch in diameter.
You will also need to have jute string or twine, hot glue, and about five straws or felt cords all cut into a one inch section.
To begin making the garland you will want to decide on the colors to use. If you are looking for a more modern design you may choose to use all-white felt balls to resemble white lights. If you already have white walls and are looking to add color to your space you may want to use brighter colors. You can look at the area you are wanting to hang the garland and decide on the colors you will need to purchase or make.
Making A Felt Bulb Garland
When your colors are picked out you can start hot gluing the half inch piece of straw (felt cord) to the top of each felt ball.
If you are able to stick the straw (felt cord) into the felt pom poms a little bit it can help make the garland more secure. If you are unable to push it into the ball you can hot glue it to the top, but you must ensure that it is secure.
Once the straws (felt cords) are glued onto the balls you can move to the next step. The next thing you must do is get the jute string or twine ready. You should leave about one foot of extra space on one side of the garland to ensure that you have enough room to tie it and hang it when the project is finished.
Starting about one foot from the end of the twine you can begin wrapping the twine around the straw (felt cord) very tightly. You should hot glue the twine to the string. After the string is wrapped all the way to the top of the straw (felt cord) you can move onto the next bulb. The string should look like the metal part of a light-bulb.
When moving to the next ball you can decide on how much space to leave. You will likely opt out leave about six inches in between each bulb. Once you have moved over about six inches you can begin the process of wrapping and hot gluing the twine around the straw (felt cord) again.
You can repeat this process until all of the bulbs are wrapped in twine and hot glued. Pic of finished bulb garland. After you have finished the last ball you will want to leave about a foot of twine at the end and then cut it. On both ends of the string, you can tie a small knot. This knot will be used to tie the garland up. You can tie this felt bulb garland to any nail, thumbtack or other location.
Variations in this Project
The garland that you choose to use will be as large or as small as you want. You can make the garland three feet long or up to about ten feet long, depending on your location. If you are looking to make the garland longer than ten feet you may want to make two different garlands.
Keeping the garland length maxed out to about ten feet will help ensure that the string does not get too heavy to support the bulbs. You may choose to use all one color for the bulbs, create a pattern or use random colors.
The colors that you choose to use are completely up to you and will look great no matter what you decide. You may choose to lay the balls out first to make sure the colors look good together and that the colors next to each other work well also.
When you have finished this project you will be amazed at how much this garland actually resembles real string lights. The felt ball bulbs will resemble real light bulbs because of the attention to detail.
The wrapped twine will look exactly like the metal part of the bulb, which will add a great style to the garland. While these lights will not light up a room, they will surely brighten up your life and get you excited about the project that you created. Everyone that sees this garland will stop to ask you where you got it. They will look so similar to real light bulbs that people will need to stop and take a second look at your great craftsmanship.
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