On my online workbook this week: Deeply

Dear

This week’s inspiration is… the iced coffee weather we are having. And Café au Lait dahlias, of course!

My design note for you this week is about how to avoid your precious fairy lights becoming trash. You can buy fairy lights anywhere but when you find that right one, with just the right kind of glow, that lasts and lasts in your designs, with just the right smaller battery pack that you can easily conceal… they become design treasures that you want to reuse, right?

These tiny lights are my favourite to use in a design. But there is a trick to attaching them so that you can remove them again.

Of course a fairy light will stop glowing if the wire is broken because a complete, unbroken electrical circuit is required for electricity to flow from the power source through the tiny LED bulbs and back again. A break in the wire creates an open gap that stops the flow of current entirely.

So attaching them is easy if you do not mind how you will remove them. But with just a bit of care (craftsmanship) you can protect the container and the lights. Firstly in this week's Tutorial I explain that I prefer to use hot glue. Sticky dots or gallery putty remain sticky and can pull on the wires when it is time to remove them. Hot glue peels off once set.

Now where to glue: never glue on a lightbulb or close to a lightbulb. Or close to the end of the battery pack where the wires connect. This is where the wire is the most vulnerable. Glue somewhere in the middle, right on the wire part of the fairy-lights (see the pictures above) so that you can peel away the wire and either cut through the hot glue (and peel the glue from the glass) or peel the glue from the wire. It comes off without any effort.

This way you keep your design treasures looking as good as new for as long as possible.

Enjoy!

Every good wish,

Christine