The thin, translucent shells of table tennis balls make terrific miniature light shades. The key to success is two fold: colors that allow the light to shine through and a bold design suitable for a circular surface that also disguises the balls seam and manufacturer logo. The spiral reminds me of spiral galaxies in space.
What you will need:
1 strand of 20 clear miniature lights
20 Table Tennis Balls
Blue Liquid food Color, or Egg Dye
Rubber or latex Gloves
Paper Towels
Water to Rinse the Dye
Craft Knife with Several Sizes of Blades
Hot Glue Gun and glue Sticks
Paint pen in Yellow Opaque (one that marks on Plastic with a Quick Drying base)
Mineral Spirits or Paint Thinner
Cotton Swabs
1. The balls should be clean and dry. Wearing gloves, cover the balls with undiluted blue food color dye. Rub in the color with your fingers until it’s even. Rest the balls on the paper towels so you don’t get color on your work surface. The longer you leave on the dye, the darker the color will be. To get a pale shade, leave the dye on about one hour and 15 minutes. Rinse and dry the balls.
2. Using the craft knife, insert the blade into the middle of the manufacturer logo on the ball and twist it carefully until you have a hole that’s just a bit bigger than the base of your bulb.
3. Apply a tiny dab of hot glue around the top of the bulb base and slip the bulb into the ball so the tip of the ball gets enclosed. Repeat the process for each ball until they’re all attached to the light strand.
4. Plug in the lights so you can see the seems on the individual balls more easily. With the pencil, lightly draw a spiral on the ball. Draw it so you can cover up as much of the seem as possible. Now, beginning at the spirals end, paint over the penciled lines until the seam is covered and dry. Paint from paint pens doesn’t dry very fast on plastic, so let the top half of the ball dry well before painting the second half. To save time you can paint one half of several balls, let them dry, then do the other half.
5. When the paint is dry, use the small, sharp blade of the craft knife to trim off the excess hot glue. Paint a circle to cover up any glue or any part of the logo left showing. You may need to do several coats to cover them completely. Let the paint dry between each coat.