String lights are a fun, creative and inexpensive way to light up a room, without an electrician or fancy equipment. Also known as Christmas lights, they have more use in them than just for the holiday.
Flameless Fireplace
You can have the beauty of a lit fireplace year round without any of the hassle, or the heat. Great for the summer months! Just decorate your fireplace however you usually do, and add some string lights for ambience. You can even take it a step further with some logs covering the lights, so it looks like they’re lit up from behind. Colored lights give this project some extra pizazz! The Christmas Light Source did a great tutorial with colored string lights.
Decorative Headboard
If you want to save on space, or are looking for a less conventional statement piece in your bedroom, you could use string lights to make an interesting headboard.
Home Edit has an easy to follow tutorial for a light up headboard. It also works as a nightlight or dim light for winding down at night.
Highlight a Doorway
If you want to jazz up your room or apartment, but don’t have a lot of wall space, you can hang lights around doorways. They also create great ambient lighting for a room with a nice cozy mood.
Lit Garland
If you’re really into DIY, you can make your own lit garland. Choose any kind of leafy plant or vine you want, and cut it to fit the space between the bulbs. Attach the plant with some florist wire, and continue along the entire length of the string lights. Homey Oh My has a beautiful tutorial for a light up garland.
Twinkle Light Ceiling
If you have a lot of string lights lying around, hang them across the ceiling to create a light canopy. You can make a design on the ceiling, or just attach the lights across so the whole area is covered, for a cozy atmosphere. Home Guides has a step by step guide to making a string light ceiling. This works really well in dorm rooms, so you don’t have to use the harsh fluorescent ceiling lights all the time.
Light Curtains
Attach some waterfall lights, or smaller lights that hang vertically instead of horizontally, to the inside of some gauzy curtains, for an opaque effect. Fustany has a cute tutorial for curtain lights.
You can even get string lights to look like curtains on their own, and hang them on the windows. Yard Envy did a really easy tutorial for light curtains that anyone could do, inside or outside.
Wall Art
Make your own kind of wall art instead of buying it online. You can make a lit up painted piece, with some canvas and string lights. Suzy Sitcom has a great tutorial for a lit up painted canvas from start to finish.
You can make a design right on the canvas with just lights, or even print out a favorite family photo, and light that up. NonaChewy on YouTube has an inexpensive tutorial on making your own lighted canvas.
You can also string lights across the wall and add photos or art for a personalized touch. Some string lights come with their own clips for photos now, but you can easily do the same thing with a regular string of lights and clothes pins, like Fairystring did here with some simple string lights.
Mirror Lights
Outline a mirror with string lights to brighten up the mirror and the space. You can get a mirror without a border for a more casual look, or outline the wall around the mirror for an eye catching faux border.
Spell Out Letters
Any kind of string lights work for this project. Just attach them to the wall in the shape of letters, or a word you want to spell out. Now you have your own neon sign!
Highlight Windows
If windows occupy a lot of your wall space, hang lights around them for some great lighting during the day and at night, too. Hanging the lights high above the window, much like curtains, makes it look like the window is bigger than it actually is – and will light up the room well.
String lights add an effortless piece of personality to any space, no matter the size. Instead of collecting dust in storage, they could be lighting up your home. Just try it out, and you’ll never look back.