Recycled Light Bulbs ~ Pinterest Challenge

Kristie Hudson

5 years ago

Welcome to the October Pinterest Challenge Blog Hop, hosted by My Pinterventures. The purpose of this Pinterest Challenge is to motivate all the participants of this hop {and y’all too} to not just pin, but to make it happen! Look below for a list of past challenges. This month I decided to recycle light bulbs into something a little more interesting.

Past Challenges

The current list for 2019 challenges is below & you can check out this post for a list of 2018 challenges.

This started with this pin that showed light bulbs turned into hot air balloons. That turned out to be dead end for any kind of instructions. Don’t you just hate that? I also found this pin just the other day from DIY & Crafts for wrapping a light bulb with twine to look like a pear. I decided to try both out, so let’s see how it goes!

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Recycled Light Bulbs = Pear

The first light bulb project I decided to try was the twine wrapped pear. It seemed easy & I had to think about the hot air balloon one for a bit! This was the perfect chance to try out my new Gorilla hot glue gun I got on sale at JoAnns.

My other supplies included twine, a cinnamon stick, & of course light bulbs. These little light bulbs are the bane of my existence by the way! They go to a fan in my son’s old room & the end is a weird in between size that’s really hard to find. Plus they are constantly going out!

Anywho, on with the project! I cut my cinnamon stick at an angle so I could set it more on top of the bulb end. The one in the pinned project was on the side.

Then I glued an end of the twine to the top & started wrapping, adding dots of glue as needed.

This went fairly well until I got to the bottom. I had to add more glue to keep it from slipping on the slope. At one point I though I’d broken the bulb, but it was just glue strings, ha ha!

Not so crazy about all the glue boogers…

I fixed that by going over the bottom with a second layer of twine. Bye, bye glue boogers!

Now it needs a leaf! This one fell off a wreath I made a while back & seemed perfect for this project.

Although pears don’t have twirly vines, I decided this one would…

A fun project & fairly pear like!

Recycled Light Bulbs = Hot Air Balloon

Since this pin lead to a dead end, I had to improvise A LOT for this project! The smaller bulbs were way too small for the “basket” I wanted to use, so I swapped it for a larger one.

The words on top of the bulb came off easily with my fingernail. A rough towel would probably work too, if your hands are fancier than mine. ; p

I took the little vase outside & painted it with a metallic black paint because I wasn’t digging the red. While I waited for that to dry, I channeled my inner McGyver & made a wire holder for the light bulb.

We’ll see how that works out! Once the spray paint was dry, I decided to go over it with some mostly dried out paint in a tannish color. That looks like a basket, right? : D

I made another wire loop to sit on top of the vase then I finagled it all together.

See, finagled…

I don’t know how else to put that because I just twisted wire until it stayed {mostly} put! Then I decided it needed some “rope” over the “balloon” part. Good thing I found this giant cone of twine when I was out yardsaling the other day!

I tried several different things with the twine to get a roped-net-looking effect, even crochet & macrame. Ultimately it was back to the glue gun…

I tried making the glue globs looking purposeful & it worked…a little. To cover up the twine ends, I wrapped the bottom with more twine. It also helped the light bulb sit a little straighter in the McGyvered wire stand I made.

I added some extra bits with knots to finish it off & I think it’s looking {mostly} like a hot air balloon now!

Just don’t touch it because it might fall to pieces! Here it is with the pear because life sized pears & miniature hot air balloons make an awesome vignette, ha ha!