Cuteness alert coming right at you, but how fun is this little DIY project, guys? I found the original inspiration on Pinterest (the ‘lamp shades’ were covered in Hallowe’en hued paper) but figured I’d give it a go using my fave hues. Wouldn’t this garland be absolutely fabulous for a bridal shower, an outdoor wedding and or even the most perfect addition to a nursery in lieu of a night light? Check out the awesome step by step photos below shot by the always wonderful Jenna. Craft on, beauties!

{Step 1} Carefully cut apart a Dixie cup and smooth it out so it is as flat as possible. Trace the smoothed out cup carefully onto a piece of paper to make your Dixie cup shade template. I had to try and make my template a few separate times until the template wrapped around the cup perfectly so don’t get upset if the first template you trace doesn’t fit over your cup perfectly. Make as many shade cut outs from your scrapbook paper as you will need to cover each individual bulb on your light garland.

{Step 2} Using double sided tape, adhere one end of a shade cover to a Dixie cup. Add another piece of double sided tape to the other end of the cut out and carefully wrap the entire piece around the cup. I tried to slide the edge of my cut out against the lip of the Dixie cup to give the ‘shade’ an as seamless as possible look. Make sure your edges match up and repeat this step until all of your Dixie cups are covered. 

Like so!

{Step 3} Using a pencil (or you can just eyeball it) you’ll make an X on the bottoms of the Dixie cups. Then carefully using an Exacto knife you’ll need to cut an X pattern into your cup. This is where the bulbs will poke through and the X needs to be small enough that the cups won’t slip out and fall off. Repeat this step until all of your Dixie cups have slit X’s into the bottoms and then carefully begin popping in each bulb to the bottoms of the cups, stringing along until your garland is covered.

I only made a select number of shades for the purpose of the photos here but you get the idea. And it’s also important to note, that it’s a bit risky to use regular holiday lights for this project; they can get very hot and because of how close they would be to the cups and paper may cause the cups to melt or catch fire. The original project article suggests using LED lights which is great if you can find them with white wiring (I had no such luck)! For the purpose of pretty pictures I used regular lights.

And just in case you’re wondering how your little cups will look when you plug in your lights, here’s a shot for you :) xoxo

This little project was also shown over on The Loveliest Day; thanks Melis for sharing the love :)