Pathway Light Trial Run

Last year I had a pathway running up my front lawn.  I ended up buying a roll of burlap and putting it from the cemetery fence up to my regular front pathway.  I ended up using some of my solar lanterns to hold it in.  Every time the wind blew it would get all twisted up.  I know they have these magic big staples that are supposed to hold down landscape fabric and the like, but I bought the burlap after the summery season, so they didn't have the staples.  I already bought them for this year.  But either way, I wanted another pathway, but I wanted it to be lit this year.  The solar lights weren't really enough light and I had some purple tree branches that just looked awful. 

So here's my inspiration picture.  It appears to be from Martha Stewart, but I found it on this blog.

So the other day I shared my Buy Costumes order, which included these pathway lights.

 
Well, this was my test run for Halloween.  It was still August, so we're in the backyard with 6 foot privacy fence, and it's already been taken down.  I try not to look like the crazy person all the time.

 First I took everything out of the box.  There's the strand of lights, the instructions, and the little stakes.  I am not really planning on using the stakes.  Then I plugged the lights in to make sure they worked.  One didn't come on a first, but I just tightened it up, and ta-da, it worked.  Good thing, because there aren't any extra lights.  I really kind of wish these came in LEDs instead.  They are not quite as bright, but they don't get hot and use less electricity.

So my vision wasn't exactly the pumpkins on the pathway anymore.  I visioned lanterns on hooks.  I had picked up some summer lanterns in the Big Lots summer clearance.  They only had 6 left that were not broken, so I had bought all 6 of them.  I had been looking for the shepherd's hooks online for awhile.  They were somewhere between $8 and $50 and had crazy shipping charges on them.  I had looked in a couple of stores, but hadn't found them.  I got the crazy idea to check HomeDepot.com and saw that not only did they have them in the local store, but they were $6.97.  Much better.  My new vision is the lanterns on the hooks.  

So I set up the shepherd's hooks that I bought in my backyard.  Don't mind the crazy stack of 2x4 pieces.  That was a project from last year.  It's supposed to be lawn Jenga.  It needs to go into the trash because it's been outside for the last year and the table its on is about to collapse.  I should have put it away.  But it's just in the way now.

So I added the lanterns to each of the the hooks.  

I got the lights out and decided to hook them onto the lanterns for spacing purposes.  I had 10 lights, but only 6 lanterns, so I have some lights that will be down at the bottom of the stakes at the ends.  I plan to get some of those plastic pumpkins to put around them.  So it will be a combination of lanterns and pumpkins.  I would use real pumpkins, but unfortuantely they rot.  And I leave my display up for a month.  Rotting pumpkins not so pretty.

I got out the fancy little stakes, well four of them to place the bulbs that were hanging out on the ground.  I had to do a little moving around of the hooks to make sure everything fit comfortably.  Now I wanted to the lights to actually go inside the lanterns.  They each had a removable section inside that held a candy, so I just completely took all of these out.

See the little tiny tabs and the holes, well maybe not in the picture.  But I was able to carefully place the wire into the two tab holes used for locking the candles in place.  I know I will need to come up with something more permanent.  But for the test run, it works.

And here is the entire strand of string now inside all of the lanterns.  

Now the part that kind of sucked...waiting until it got dark.  So about an hour and a half later I got to turn the lights on.

My camera made it look lighter outside than it really was.  I liked the orange glow, it definitely looked like little flames inside.  The gratuitous close up.

And then I just had to wait about another 15 minutes and 30 mosquito bites later to get the actual this is what it will look like when it's dark picture.

Don't worry, it's all been taken down.  Even the hooks.  I had to mow the lawn.  So now I just have to wait 4 weeks until I can put it up for real.