cactus light

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We spent 3 years living in Arizona and my daughter developed a real love for cacti.  Now that we're living in Wisconsin, she really misses cactus decor, so we decided we needed to make something to remind us of Arizona.  She had seen a cute cactus lamp online and that gave me the idea to DIY this cactus wire lamp.

What you will need:

14 gauge galvanized wire
24 gauge jewelry wire
wire cutter
Battery operated dew drop LED lights
a pot
Styrofoam
rocks

Start by taking out your 14 gauge wire and forming the wire into the shape of a cactus.  It's a little tricky to manuever the wire around, but stick with it.  Make sure to leave an extra 4" or so of a "stem" on the bottom so you have room to stand up your cactus in your pot.  If you're having a hard time free handing your cactus shape, you could draw one out on some paper and then lay your wire over the drawing to shape your cactus.  My cactus stands about 13" tall from top to bottom.



Next we'll prepare the pot.  Take your styrofoam and your battery pack and begin to stuff it into your pot to fit snuggly.  You will want to make sure that the on/off button is easily accessible too.  My button was on the side of my battery pack so I wanted to make sure it fit with the button facing up.

 


Now take out your thinner 24 gauge wire and cut about 25 pieces to approximately 1.5" each.  These will be the spikes on the cactus and will also help to keep your lights in place.

Once you have your battery pack and styrofoam nice and snug, add in your cactus.  Stick your cactus  at least an inch or two into the styrofoam so that it stands nice and straight and won't tip over.  Then take your lights and begin to string them along your cactus and holding them in place by taking your 1.5" piece of wire and wrapping it around both the wire and cactus frame.  If you have a longer set of LED lights like I did, before I began wrapping the lights around the frame, I folded the set of lights in half and still had lighting left over by the time I finished the cactus.



Continue wrapping your lights and your wire until you have the entire cactus lights attached.  If you have extra lights, you can just stuff them under near the rocks to hide them.



Then all you need to do is add your rocks to the top.  I chose a bigger rock to cover the button so I had easy access to the botton.  Then put it on display!  I absolutely love our DIY cactus light even if we aren't living in the desert  :)

do it yourself