I Heart Fairy Lights

I have a serious thing for fairy lights. I love, love, love them. Every year after Christmas I cry a little on the inside when it's time to take them down. So for a while now I have been trying to think of a way to use fairy lights in my decor (without looking like I was just to lazy to take the Christmas lights down).

I was really inspired by a photo (that I can't find anywhere now, sorry) of a jar full of fairy lights sitting on a bedside table. I recreated it in our living room using an old Moccona jar and my Christmas tree lights.

It thought it looked ok, but not awesome. It had a few major things going against it... 1. there was about 10 metres of lights jammed into the jar and it would get really hot after being on for about an hour. 2. it really only looked good when it was turned on. The killer blow was when my bff Erin was visiting and she saw it from across the room and asked 'how come you have a jar of shredded paper over there?'. Three strikes and that jar of lights was out.


I wasn't ready to give up on the jar though, so I hunted around for some more attractive lights to go in it. When I was up in Hervey Bay the other day I found the sweetest little star shaped wire lights in Pandanus. They were adorable and nice and about two metres long. Perfect for my jar.


Once again though, they really only looked good when they were turned on and even then it wasn't everything I had hoped it would be. Sad face.

Then I stumbled across this picture on Pinterest. It combined two of my great loves, birds and fairy lights. Perfection!!

I had a birdcage in my sitting room that I had planned on painting white for ages. I took it out back and gave it about a billion coats of matte white paint. (I probably should've sanded it or primed it or something first, it took sooooo many coats to cover up the 'fake' rust.)

After I was happy with the paint job and it was completely dry I brought it back inside, weaved the fairy lights through it, turned it on and fell in love! It was exactly what I hoped it would look like and more!!

I took one of these photos with a flash and one without. The one without a flash give a better idea of how it looks in the sitting room at night. They also show the adorable way the lights twinkle a pattern onto the wall behind the cage.


I'm glad I persevered with the fairy lights because I love the way the make the room feel.