Project Wonderland; Operation Firefly

Yesterday I revealed Project Wonderland, the plan Zac and I have to turn our backyard into a wonderful place for family and friends. I mentioned in this post that on our anniversary, we started working on this project.

The first thing that we wanted to check off of our list of backyard projects was putting up some whimsical/romantic candle lights in one of our trees. This picture served as our inspiration:

We figured that with a little crafty-ness we could achieve this look pretty easily. We looked at some oher photographs and decided that the supplies we would need to complete this project included:

- glass jars

- fishing line (something with at least a 20lb test to hold the glass securely)

- candles

- something to weigh down the glass jars and hold them in place (we were thinking sand or glass beads)

So before we headed out to celebrate Matt, Josh and their big news, we looked around for the appropriate tools to create our magical looking tree light fixtures.

Our first thought was to use mason jars as our lanterns. Walmart had a 12 pack of Kerr mason jars for only $8.

Although the mason jars would look pretty cool hanging from our tree, they were going to look more country and less whimsical. It wasn't really the look that we were going for. So we moved on and found some clear jars that went along much better with our plan. Zac and I were lucky to have found some small fish bowls with a frilly looking rim. I didn't capture a picture of our find while we were in the store but you'll see plenty of pictures of these fish bowl like dishes because Zac and I bought everything they had. We loved them so much that we bought all 12 jars that were on the shelf. At only $0.97 each it was hardly a bank breaker. We also got all of the other goodies we needed to work on our project.

Here's an up close look at our fishbowls that would soon become floating orbs.

We also picked up a roll of 30lb test fishing wire to secure the fishbowls and hang them from the branches. The fishing line is not only a cheap option to hang the bowls (the 250 yard roll was only $2.50) but we also hoped that the fishing line would diasappear and create the illusion that the jars were really hovering in mid air.

To make sure that our little fishbowls lit up at night we got a 12 pack of votive candles.

We opted for votive candles rather than tea lights because the larger votive candles will have a bigger flame that lasts for longer. From our experience, tea lights only last for a few hours. It would be inconvenient to have the candles burn out after only a few hours in the yard. Since the votive candles last longer, we won't have to replace them as frequently as we would have to with the tea lights. We opted to get votive candles that came in a glass candle holder so that the melted wax wouldn't get all over the inside of the fishbowls. This will make it much easier for us to replace the candles later and not worry about cleaning up a wax-y mess.

To anchor our little fishbowls and make sure that the candles don't move around we got this 3lb bag of clear glass beads for only $4.00. (You'll see in the picture of all of our supplies on the table that we bought 4 bags of beads but in the end just one of these bags was enough for our whole project.)  We chose the glass beads over sand because we thought that the beads would pick up the light of the candles and be a lot more interesting than the sand.

I will warn anyone who is planning on doing their own version of this project, to be careful while putting the beads into the glass jars. We had one casualty. Pouring the beads in let the beads bang against the glass and cracked one of the jars.

After we had all of our supplies together Zac started wrapping the fishing wire around the rim of each fishbowl and tied a loop above the rim to create a handle. We filled each of the fishbowls with beads and votive candle. The end result was this:

Our next step was to hang each of the fishbowls in the tree. Zac took the roll of fishing wire outside, grabbed a ladder and started tying the line on random tree branches. He made sure to choose branches that looked strong enough to hold the jars that were weighted down with the candles and beads.

One by one they all went up...

...until it looked like this:

Zac and I were so excited with the outcome. We just loved the way they looked, and this was in the daylight before they wer all lit up.

Later when the sun started to go down a little more, we lit all of the candles in the fishbowl just to see what they looked like all lit up. For us, the look was definitely coming together.

We re-lit the candles much later in the evening before we went to bed, just to see what they looked like when there was no other light.

My camera does not do our little project justice. It was truly something magical. Sitting on our patio furniture looking out into the yard, Zac and I were very happy with the way it all turned out. Just as we had hoped the fishing wire seemed to disappear and the fishbowls looked like they were hovering in the sky like little fireflies. The glass beads picked up the light and created a really cool extra glow.

In person the lights are much more intense.

So here is a little budget breakdown for our little tree light project:

- Glass jars (12) - $12.45

- Fishing wire (250 yards of 30lb test) - $2.67

- Glass beads (1 3lb bag) - $4.28

- 12 votive candles in glass candle holders - $5.33

Grand Total ...........................................- $24.73

We are very happy with the first completed task on the list for Project Wonderland. Getting this mini project done and loving the outcome is definitely motivating us to accomplish as many of the smaller, less expensive tasks as we can before the summer is up.

Stay tuned!