Introduction: LED Fairy Light Globes
These LED fairy light globes are quite magical! This is a really cool and simple project which you can do even if you don't have many tools at all - in fact, I made two versions - one very simple for the beginner - and one that requires a little more woodworking.
Step 1: What You'll Need
So for this project I'm cutting up a chunk of figured maple - however you could use any wood! This is one of those times when if you have a piece of wood that's really pretty, it's a good time to use it, cause you' don't need that much, and it will really stand out.
To make this light, you only need a few things - a piece of wood, a glass christmas bulb and a set of battery opperated fairy led lights. These christmas bulbs are really affordable and perfect for this application and the fairy lights are cheap and easy to work with.
Step 2: Drilling
So first I'm removing the cap part on the glass bulb and measuring how wide the opening is, which is just about an inch. So I drill a hole deep enough to hold the bulb in the wood - I'm using the drill press, however you could certainly use a drill here.
Step 3: Method 1
At this point, it's all about how you attach / hide the battery back. You can do it a couple of different ways - so let's go over two methods - if you're not concerned about completely hiding the battery back it's a little easier - so let's do that first!
Here I'm drilling a smaller hole about halfway down the wood. Now the plan is to attach the battery back on the back side - so we need a hole for the wire to slip through. So I'm marking out and drilling the same size hole, so the two holes meet. Then a little sanding to smoothen out the corners.
Step 4: Securing the Battery Pack
Then I'm just going to fish the lights up through the hole to place them in the glass.
To secure the battery back which is also where you turn the light on or off - I'm going to use velcro. So I'm just hot gluing that on to the plastic case and the wood. I'm securing the bulb with hot glue as well, and it's ready. Now as long as you keep the battery pack side towards the wall or whatever, no one would ever know it's there!
Step 5: Method 2 - Chiseling
So that's a great option if you want a simpler solution, but what if you want to hide it. Well, we could do that.
Then let's rewind a bit - now let's turn the block upside down after we drilled that first hole for the bulb to fit in. I'm just marking out the size of the case and then I'm drilling through, removing as much wood this way as possible. At this point, I'm bringing out the chisel and mallet and chiseling the rest of the wood out. This took a little while, but finally the case fit inside.
Step 6: Finishing
Now I finished both of these with some of my tung oil beeswax polish which you can pick up in my store if you'd like a tin, and it really pops the beautiful figure.
Step 7: Covering the Bottom
At this point I fed the wire through, secured the battery pack with some tape, and then cut a piece of fabric to fit right under, and I also cut a little hole for the switch on the battery back so you can turn the lights on or off. Then I drilled some holes in the corners, and secured the fabric with some screws. The screws act as little feet - and they're easy enough to remove, whenever I need to change the batteries. Then I hot glued in the bulb again, and it was all ready.
Step 8: Conclusion - Watch the Video
For a much better perspective and to see how it turned out, make sure to watch the video!