10 Ways to Decorate Outdoors With Fairy Lights and LEDs
Use these techniques to light up your house and garden for the Christmas and holiday season
Lauren Dunec Hoang
29 November 2019
Houzz Contributor. Landscape designer, a former garden editor for Sunset Magazine and in-house designer for Sunset's Editorial Test Garden. Her garden designs have been featured in the Sunset Western Garden Book of Landscaping, Sunset Western Garden Book of Easy-Care Plantings (cover), Inhabitat, and POPSUGAR.
Houzz Contributor. Landscape designer, a former garden editor for Sunset Magazine... More
As anyone who has untangled a snarled string of lights or come up one metre short on the roofline can attest, the process of hanging fairy lights is more complicated than it looks. A satisfying result depends both on proper installation as well as having the right products on hand. Let us help take the guesswork out of your fairy light set-up this year. Read on for tips from lighting professionals, including tricks for hiding cords, the best lights to use for illuminating your trees, and how to evenly hang lights along the eaves of your home.
1. Wrap shrubs
Adding just a few outdoor lights to the landscape can make a big difference and transform your garden into an inviting place to walk through or gaze at. Here, rosemary is decorated with warm-white lights to make a lovely entrance to a garden.
Get the look: To evenly cover outdoor shrubs, pick up a pack of net lights, which have bulbs distributed over a square or rectangular lattice of cords. Read the packaging to be sure the netting is large enough to wrap all the way around your shrubs.
Adding just a few outdoor lights to the landscape can make a big difference and transform your garden into an inviting place to walk through or gaze at. Here, rosemary is decorated with warm-white lights to make a lovely entrance to a garden.
Get the look: To evenly cover outdoor shrubs, pick up a pack of net lights, which have bulbs distributed over a square or rectangular lattice of cords. Read the packaging to be sure the netting is large enough to wrap all the way around your shrubs.
2. Deck out your entrance
A front porch or entrance done up with festive garlands and strings of lights can look lavishly festive without being overwhelming.
Get the look: Concentrating outdoor decorations in a single area, such as your entrance or a garden bed, can be a great way to go all out with holiday exuberance without turning your front yard into Disneyland.
Find garden and landscaping suppliers near you for professional-grade outdoor lights
A front porch or entrance done up with festive garlands and strings of lights can look lavishly festive without being overwhelming.
Get the look: Concentrating outdoor decorations in a single area, such as your entrance or a garden bed, can be a great way to go all out with holiday exuberance without turning your front yard into Disneyland.
Find garden and landscaping suppliers near you for professional-grade outdoor lights
3. Showcase trees
When dressing trees in your garden with fairy lights, highlight the main structure rather than the foliage, by wrapping the trunk and individual branches with fairy lights. Choose a single tree as a specimen, or illuminate a cluster of trees for greater impact.
Tip: To get a professional look, Ryan Morici of Heritage Oaks Landscaping recommends swapping regular holiday lights for LED mini-lights to save on power consumption. “The LED lights allow you to use many more lights per circuit versus the incandescent lights,” says Morici.
When dressing trees in your garden with fairy lights, highlight the main structure rather than the foliage, by wrapping the trunk and individual branches with fairy lights. Choose a single tree as a specimen, or illuminate a cluster of trees for greater impact.
Tip: To get a professional look, Ryan Morici of Heritage Oaks Landscaping recommends swapping regular holiday lights for LED mini-lights to save on power consumption. “The LED lights allow you to use many more lights per circuit versus the incandescent lights,” says Morici.
4. Line a pathway with paper lanterns
Welcome guests to your home this year with an enchanting walkway lined with glowing luminarias lanterns or small paper bags weighed down with sand and illuminated with LED candles.
Get the look: You can purchase lanterns or make your own using paper bags with a handful of sand at the bottom to weigh them down. If you’re thinking of a large display, gather some helpers to place LED-operated tea light candles in each one and light them just before guests arrive.
Welcome guests to your home this year with an enchanting walkway lined with glowing luminarias lanterns or small paper bags weighed down with sand and illuminated with LED candles.
Get the look: You can purchase lanterns or make your own using paper bags with a handful of sand at the bottom to weigh them down. If you’re thinking of a large display, gather some helpers to place LED-operated tea light candles in each one and light them just before guests arrive.
5. Hang snowflakes
Prefer a white Christmas? Trade traditional strings of fairy lights for a set with glittering snowflakes. Hang them where they have room to stand out, such as just below the eaves or along large branches of a tree in the front yard.
Prefer a white Christmas? Trade traditional strings of fairy lights for a set with glittering snowflakes. Hang them where they have room to stand out, such as just below the eaves or along large branches of a tree in the front yard.
6. Illuminate potted branches
You may not have trees or shrubs to wrap with fairy lights and line your entrance, but you can light up potted plants or artfully arranged branches instead.
Get the look: If you don’t have potted plants, collect branches from your backyard, local park or pick some up from a florist, then set them upright in containers filled with sand or gravel. Wrap the branches with fairy lights of your choosing, and use festive trimmings to hide the plugs and containers.
You may not have trees or shrubs to wrap with fairy lights and line your entrance, but you can light up potted plants or artfully arranged branches instead.
Get the look: If you don’t have potted plants, collect branches from your backyard, local park or pick some up from a florist, then set them upright in containers filled with sand or gravel. Wrap the branches with fairy lights of your choosing, and use festive trimmings to hide the plugs and containers.
7. Add magic to landscapes
Outdoor lights twinkling over a landscape like tiny stars are just about as magical as it gets. To mimic stars overhead, wrap branches that overhang walkways or your garden to create a softly lit canopy.
Light Up: 10 Good Reasons to Use Outdoor Lighting
Outdoor lights twinkling over a landscape like tiny stars are just about as magical as it gets. To mimic stars overhead, wrap branches that overhang walkways or your garden to create a softly lit canopy.
Light Up: 10 Good Reasons to Use Outdoor Lighting
8. Light up a treehouse
As if a backyard cubby or treehouse wasn’t magical enough, this one is fully decked out for Christmas. A Houzz favourite – with good reason – the treehouse was built by a couple in Dallas, USA, with the help of an architect, to give their grandchildren a place for imaginative play.
Regardless of how big, small, ornate or modest your cubby or treehouse is, fairy lights are always a welcome addition.
As if a backyard cubby or treehouse wasn’t magical enough, this one is fully decked out for Christmas. A Houzz favourite – with good reason – the treehouse was built by a couple in Dallas, USA, with the help of an architect, to give their grandchildren a place for imaginative play.
Regardless of how big, small, ornate or modest your cubby or treehouse is, fairy lights are always a welcome addition.
9. Highlight a wreath
If you already have garden or landscape lighting that washes a wall with light, use this as an opportunity to hang a holiday wreath as well. Weave string lights into and around the wreath or simply leave it as is – either way looks classic and understated.
If you already have garden or landscape lighting that washes a wall with light, use this as an opportunity to hang a holiday wreath as well. Weave string lights into and around the wreath or simply leave it as is – either way looks classic and understated.
10. Outline your eaves
Perhaps the most classic style in the USA, perimeter lighting along a home’s eaves and roofline creates an inviting arrival. Pelham McMurry from Light Up Nashville in the USA shares these tips for getting a professional look at home:
Your turn
How do you like to decorate your exterior with fairy lights or LEDs? Tell us in the Comments below, like this story, save the images for inspiration, and join the conversation.
More
Not yet ready for Christmas? Get organised here with this Christmas Countdown: Here’s Your Essential Planning Checklist
Perhaps the most classic style in the USA, perimeter lighting along a home’s eaves and roofline creates an inviting arrival. Pelham McMurry from Light Up Nashville in the USA shares these tips for getting a professional look at home:
- Upgrade your lights. “Even the most expensive sets of LED lights at stores are cheap quality,” says McMurry. “Commercial-grade LED lights purchased from specialty retailers is the way to go if you don’t want to repurchase your lights year after year. Quality lights cost more, but in the long run you’ll save time, frustration and money by not having to repurchase every year.” To get those perfectly straight lines where every bulb seems exactly aligned with the next one, attach lights with commercial-grade clips.
- Consider a professional.“There are many reasons to hire a professional to install your holiday lights, but maybe the most important is safety,” says McMurry. To avoid the risk of falling from a ladder or slipping on an icy roof, consider hiring a local lighting professional.
Your turn
How do you like to decorate your exterior with fairy lights or LEDs? Tell us in the Comments below, like this story, save the images for inspiration, and join the conversation.
More
Not yet ready for Christmas? Get organised here with this Christmas Countdown: Here’s Your Essential Planning Checklist
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There are environmental issues with Xmas lights, but they can have benefits too, particularly fo mental health. Xmas is a time of joy, hope, family connectedness to a lot of people and Xmas lights, often on other people’s houses can bring some of this, particularly to the young.
Yes Christmas Day is a time of celebration. Mental health comes also from experiencing the natural world. Given the amount of country that has burned in Qld & NSW (more than 100 fires burning in NSW) and the unprecedented devastation to wildlife, festive lighting is best indoors and on decking, verandahs etc. We all depend on nature 365 days of the year.
I love the movie Christmas Vacation if I could afford to put that many lights up I would!