This year was the first year that we got Christmas lights to put up, although they ended up being more for interior decoration since we live in an apartment. I’ve always preferred the colorful oversized bulbs to the mini lights that everyone has, and it looks like The Nest agrees — going bigger and bolder with your lights is becoming a trend! You just have to do it well so that it doesn’t end up looking tacky.

So Dan and I picked out some Christmas lights at the local convenience store but when we got home, we discovered to our dismay–or more to my dismay–that they were actually not as opaque as we had anticipated. In fact, they were totally translucent and you could clearly see the filament within.

original Christmas lights
translucent Christmas lights

The easy (and probably normal) thing to do in this situation would be to go back to the store and return them, but we decided to be a little creative with the mishap and try making them not translucent nor opaque, but frosted! You don’t see too many oversized frosted bulbs being sold, so we decided to “make” them ourselves.

Dan tested frosting one to see how well it would work.

original vs frosted
What a difference!

Setting up the lights in an array to be frosted.

The secret ingredient!

frosting the Christmas lights
Spraying the bulbs outside. (Please ignore the Trader Joes steamer clams box.)

post-spraying
Post-frosting: the bulbs are set out to dry for half an hour.

soft lighting effect
The frosted lights give off the soft lighting we were hoping for. Success!

Converting the Christmas lights into frosted lights was super easy. So easy, in fact, that this probably didn’t really warrant a post… haha* But it was a fun little collaborative project for the two of us. If anyone ever wants frosted lights but can’t find any, you know what to do!