How To Make Hanging Grapevine Ball Lights

Do you want the perfect lighting to keep you and your guests hanging out far into the night. These hanging grapevine ball lights have all the charm and functionality you need to take your outdoor space to the next level. Quickly transform your outdoor space by adding these charming lights to your garden or patio. Let's get started!

Materials

Creating Grapevine Balls

This is a simple project that makes a big impact. Using a wire frame from hanging baskets as our framework skeleton. The chains attached for hanging the baskets were removed and set aside.

Using zip ties the baskets were put together to form a “round” sphere-like shape. This is what the grape vines are wound around. As the vines were wrapped around each ball, black zip ties were used sparingly to hold everything in place.

Once the balls took the right shape we set them aside. 

Hanging Grape Vine Ball Lights

Using a cable from an old above ground pool cover, one end was attached to our second story deck using an eye bolt. The other end of the cable was going to be attached to a tree 30 feet away. 

Five grapevine balls were made and need to be hung on the smooth cable. Stopping them from sliding was an issue. As you can see from the picture, they hang lower on one side than on the other.

A knot was tied in the cable to attach the chain to hang the lights. This kept everything evenly spaced and prevented the grapevine lights from sliding on the cable. 

Wrapping the Lights

Now that everything was in place it was time to wrap the lights. We used sets of LED soft lights. These were capable of being connected together. Each grapevine ball used a 100 light strand of lights.

The lights were not zip tied to the grapevine balls, only wrapped. The quirkiness of the grapevines themselves held the lights in place as we wrapped them.

Attaching to a Tree

Believe it or not it is better for the tree if you screw directly into it, rather than wrap a cable around it. In our case two eye bolts were used. 

The two eye bolts acted like a pulley system similar to a flagpole. Once we had the cable stung through the eye bolts we no longer needed the ladder. The lights could be raised and lowered from the ground. 

The winch that came with the pool cover cable worked perfectly to tighten everything up and hold it in place. Using a winch like this also makes it easy to take down at the end of the season if you so desire.

Others Ways To Light Up Your Backyard

These grape vine ball lights are one piece of the outdoor lighting puzzle. To keep things interesting it's a good idea to have a mix of different kinds of lighting in your outdoor space. 

Low voltage lighting

Using low voltage lights is a great way to light a garden pathway or add an accent to your outdoor space.

Spotlight

Used to highlight a feature you want people to focus on. This is a great tactic to draw attention to your water feature or garden.

Submersible lights

This is the best way to show off your water feature. They will get people's attention and wow them at the same time. Just like the spotlight highlights a feature, your submersible lights give you a view of what's below the surface. 

Submersible lights are also great to use in a fountain. Highlight your water stream with every color of the rainbow.

Conclusion

Take some time to look around and see what’s in your own backyard. What was once an overgrown mess turned out to be something useful. We were fortunate to have an abundance of vines growing in our backyard (although at the time it was a pain to clean out). You may be surprised what you find when you keep your mind open and let your creative juices flow. Until next time… enjoy your backyard water garden.

~Jeff