Grapevine Lanterns

Grapevine Lanterns – quick & easy

ALERT! ALERT!  I set this post up to publish today unfinished. I had content written to tell you about the lanterns, but didn’t have a finished picture. I had to wait until dark to take one so you could see it all lit up. And then I fell asleep.

Now, it’s daylight and I’ll have to wait until tonight. Bummer.

This is a super easy project that can give a nice ambiance to your outdoor lighting with little effort. There are cheaper ways of doing this, but we all have times when friends are coming for dinner and we’ve just been too busy to think about much beyond getting the house in shape and throwing together some food.

This takes one trip to Hobby Lobby and minutes to make.

These are your supplies:

A grapevine globe
Spanish moss
battery powered outdoor lights
small gauge wire
4 AA batteries

Tools you’ll need:

needle nose pliers with a wire cutter

(Or use your eyebrow tweezers and scissors and twist-ties from your bread bag. I multi-task a lot in our house. I’ve planted entire herb gardens with a soup spoon.)

First, insert your batteries and make sure the lights work. Pull apart the grapevine to make a hole to insert your battery pack from the lights. Secure it with a piece of wire so the switch is near an opening in the grapevine for you to turn it on and off.

Then, pulling tightly enough there’s no sag, wrap the lights around the grapevine globe. Spread bits of Spanish moss around the globe covering up the lights’ wiring.

That’s it!

Now, a few details. No biggies, I promise.

Pull the grapevines apart at a place where they already have a larger hole and insert the battery box. Secure the box with a bit of wire or let it just lay inside the globe. When hung, it should be lying on the bottom of your globe. I used battery powered lights on the one you see here. That’s good for random, out of the way places you may want to hang your light. If you want these hung where there’s a receptacle nearby, use outdoor electric lights that you plug in. You may have to run an extension cord.

Most store-bought grapevine globes are made around a wire frame. This gives stability to your vines so they won’t crush.

This isn’t going to give you a reading light. It’s ambiance. Atmosphere. Lighting up a dark corner. Or hang high in a tree or bush.

Battery powered lights are a little dimmer than electric lights, but you can increase the illumination by the number of lights. And there are all kinds of ways to do this.

There are strands with 20 lights, 50, or 100. Consider the size of your globe and where you’ll hand it. I’ve found that 50 lights on a 10″ globe is nice. But, it’s all up to you.

Paint your globes white and use white lights. You can find 10-light strands on white wire in many bridal departments of craft stores.

Take bits of Spanish moss and spread around the globe, pushing it into an occasional hole to keep it secure.

These look nice at night lit up in the dark, but during the day, up close, they’ll look a little drab. The moss gives them a nice daytime look.

Ta-Da!

Your lighted globe. Hang these outside around your patio to give mood lighting.