Pretty Party Lights DIY

This is a very busy week for me as both of my daughters' birthdays are this week... I know, great planning! This is also the first year that they are having separate parties as they are now both at school and have their own friends so instead of trying to cater for kids with a 4 year age gap, I decided to take the plunge and plan two parties.

I tried to keep it simple and the decorations as neutral as possible so that I can use them for both parties, so whilst browsing Pinterest (as usual!) I spotted a DIY party light tutorial that uses transparent plastic cups to create light shades for fairy lights. Here's my twist on that tutorial.

I used:

24 transparent plastic cups

Printed paper

Spray adhesive

Sticky tape

Fairy lights

Pen

Stanley knife (but a craft knife would work better)

1. Make a stencil of the plastic cup so that you have a curved shape.
2. Use a pen to duplicate the stencil onto the backs of the other sheets of paper. This can be a little tricky.
3. Cut out all of the shapes and place them on a covered surface. I used a large sheet of paper to cover the table and protect it from the glue.
4. Follow the instructions of your spray adhesive. I used a spray adhesive which instructed to spray both items to be glued and wait for 10 minutes before pressing them together.
5. Wrap the paper around the cups and press to stick. I think this was the most difficult part as I had to line the line up properly. It went wrong a couple of times!
6. The paper that I used was thicker than normal paper so they didn't stick completely. I used a strip of sticky tape on the seams to make sure that they didn't unravel.
7. Make a slit in the closed end of the cup. I used a Stanley knife which cut quite well with some of them and with others it broke the cup a bit. Perhaps a craft knife would have been better, but use whichever method works for you.
8. Slot the fairy lights through the slits and you're done!

I'm really pleased with how they turned out. I was a bit sceptical at some points because the paper was starting to unravel and the slits didn't go very well, but the end result is pretty cool and my girls think they're a great addition for their parties.

Thanks for reading!