Apartment Therapy Unplugged | DIY Awesome Xmas Lights With Stuff From a Frat House

DIY Awesome Xmas Lights With Stuff From a Frat House

The massively popular strands of Christmas lights you see everywhere this time of year, whether LED or not, are not so unique or special on their own. You can go out and buy some lights with more character—like globe lights—but you know that more style usually means more money (especially true if you've already bought or inherited a box of tangled lights). A cheap and easy way to pump them up? Grab a cheap and colorful box of ping pong balls instead...

Instructables user advancedMischief had a 'duh!' moment and realized that ping pong balls make great light diffusers, and apparently they look awesome strung up with lights.

This Insructable to turn an ordinary string of Christmas lights into a great party decoration is easy enough to figure out that you don't even need the insructions: Drill hole in ball, glue ball onto lightbulb. Done.

Who would have thought that you could make such a glam string of lights from things most likely to be found together in a frat house?

Comments (7)

great idea, although it seems like the whole ping pong ball in a vice grip is overkill and would take forever to do a string or 2.

i would go the dangerous way and just hold it and jab the drill in. Or go with a hand drill, the kind where it's just a small handled you can spin, it'll take no time at al to get through that plastic...

i just picked up some LED lights from target but with the large, 3" or so, plastic top on it which resembles the larger christmas light kind. They look great and are cool to the touch.

posted by jmorey on December 10th 2008 at 3:04pm
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I love this DIY!!
I'm not really sure how much ping pong balls go for but seems like a cheap and easy way to do this for party decorations!

posted by witchbaby on December 10th 2008 at 5:24pm
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I used to do this when I was in college as well. For the most part a pen and a steady hand can make the hole. You can usually buy a gross of ping pong balls for about $10, sometimes less. I also used to decorate them with black Sharpies first.

posted by Joey on December 11th 2008 at 3:33pm
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um i love it!

posted by ellehudson on March 1st 2009 at 8:40pm
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Now we just need a craft for all those Natty Light cans and Maxim magazines...

posted by Damfino on March 2nd 2009 at 1:26pm
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Damfino - here you go! :D

http://www.unplggd.com/re-nest/artwork/make-your-own-yellow-page-cardholder-075268

posted by Geno B. on March 2nd 2009 at 7:09pm
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I used to pull 2 strings of LED Christmas lights through white plastic dryer ducting and then twist the ducting into a big knotted shape. I also put one of the blinky lights into each string for a cool effect!

Scrapbooking Resources and Tutorials

posted by Ryan7 on March 30th 2009 at 3:12pm
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