DIY A Beautiful Orb Lighting Feature With A Few Low-Cost Dollar Tree Items & Glue
A big part of preparing your home to host summer parties is working out a practical yet cute lighting option for the patio table. Wiring new outdoor lights is absolutely not in the budget this year, and a whisper of wind will snuff out the flame on real candles. The solution is sitting on the shelves of your local Dollar Tree. Glue some colorful glass pebbles onto a globe-style vase and pop your creation atop a glass plate with a bright portable LED light. You can put this light together in an afternoon, once you have all the supplies, and there's no need to tamper with any electrical connections.
"Lighting is an instant way to make the space feel more custom or higher end," says Kate Anne Gross of Kate Anne Designs (via Homes and Gardens). This DIY offers a super affordable way to achieve that goal. They're ideal for long outdoor tables or placing all around a patio or garden in a fairy-realm kind of way. They'd also make ornate temporary driveway, garden path, or porch step safety lights, guiding guests new to your home. Need to check out something way down the back of the garden? Pick up your DIY light, flip it over so the LED bulb sits in the bottom of the vase, and use it as a lantern. Plus, the lights are so subtle they're guaranteed not to shine brightly into the neighbors' windows, even if the party goes late into the evening.
Gather the main materials for your globe light: vase and glass gems
Before you start making this beautiful DIY that will light up your backyard patio for summer nights, you need to go shopping. The vase is the easiest thing to source for this DIY — there's only one clear round glass floral bowl at Dollar Tree to choose from. Also, while at the Dollar Tree, pick up your choice of accent gems. The mixed 14-ounce bags come in Floral Garden (blue, aqua, green, and transparent) or Aqua Mist (aqua and matte-finish white). Prefer uniform hues? Then consider the Ocean Blue and Ombre Mixed Glass bags.
If you're feeling ambitious, you could channel the design "rule of three" and buy supplies for three linked but slightly different globe lights to cluster in the center of your table. For example, cover a small, medium, and large vase — Amazon has fish bowl vases in all kinds of dimensions — each in a differently-hued pack of Dollar Tree glass pebbles.
You'll also need some kind of plate to put under the upturned vase, be it a small ceramic serving dish from the thrift store, this galvanized metal bottle cap wall decor (just remove the string) from Dollar Tree, or a wood round like this 6.5-inch circle wood shape from Hobby Lobby for under $3. Just make sure the diameter of the disc is a little larger than that of the vase mouth — almost 5 inches in the case of the Dollar Tree option.
Get making a table-top orb light for outdoor living
For the light inside your glass-adorned globe, we like these submersible battery-operated white LED lights from Wayfair — under $35 for a 2-pack. Walmart sells Aihimol LED puck lights for about $4 each. Use the adhesive backing to adhere them to the plate or round vase coaster. You're joining glass to glass in this DIY; you need a glue that works on non-porous surfaces, like E6000 Adhesive. Get a 2-fl-oz tube for just over $4 at Lowe's. Dollar Tree also has tiny tubes of All-Purpose Krazy Glue, which bonds glass.
It honestly couldn't be simpler to put together this lighting idea that will brighten up your deck. First, clean your vase with rubbing alcohol to remove fingerprints or debris that might reduce the glue's strength. Once dry, turn the vase upside down and grab a glass pebble. Dab on some glue and stick it down in the middle of the vase. Continue gluing on glass pebbles, working down the sides of the vase. Once the vase is entirely covered, fill in the gaps between the pebbles with glue as evenly as possible. Leave the glue to dry and cure — in the case of E6000 Adhesive, that will take 24 to 72 hours. If you're using other glue, refer to the manufacturer's instructions. Place the round base down on your table, sit a switched-on light in the middle of it, then position your glass orb over the top.