In this guide, I’ll share tips on how to use fairy lights in bedroom spaces in some of the most creative ways. Keep reading to learn more about their versatility, as well as ways to use them hazard-free.
Customizing your bedroom is one of the best ways to make it cozier and feel more like home. One popular way to do so is to make use of fairy lights to decorate areas of your room and create a warmer ambiance.
Where to Put Fairy Lights in the Bedroom
There are dozens of possibilities when it comes to making use of your fairy lights. Given that you can buy fairy lights in strings of different colors, sizes, and varieties, it’s only a matter of deciding what type of vibe you want to create in your bedroom.
Take a look at some of my favorite places to use fairy lights in a bedroom.
Make a Fairy Light Headboard
Using fairy lights to decorate your bed’s headboard is an excellent way to create a cozy atmosphere at night. It’s also convenient in the sense that this setup can work as a built-in night light on your bed.
This works best if you have an electrical outlet close to the floor near your bed. Adjust your bed so that it is flush against the outlet, then run the fairy light string up the border of the headboard (both sides and the top only).
In order to smoothly and safely add fairy lights to your headboard, you’ll want to have a wooden or smooth-surface headboard. You can secure the lights by using small Command strip hooks.
Make a Fairy Light Border on Your Windows
Dressing your windows with fairy lights is a way to spruce up your bedroom, both from the outside and from within. At night, you can look into your home from outside and see the fairy lights twinkling from within. And from inside your bedroom, they create a nice soft light to fall asleep or study to.
You can even discover flickering fairy lights, these types of fairy lights have settings where the bulbs actually blink or flicker, giving the illusion of sparkling or flame-like lights.
As an added plus, fairy lights framing your windows look great during the winter holiday months, and you can easily control them from inside where it’s warm.
Make a Fairy Light Border on Your Mirror/Vanity
If you can’t already tell, I’m all about borders! You can’t go wrong using fairy lights to make a simple border around a framed area in your bedroom, and a large mirror or vanity is no exception.
If you have a mirror atop your vanity table, framing it with a string of soft fairy lights will illuminate the mirror with warm light.
Not only does it look cute; it also makes getting ready in the morning that much more cozy and special. You can do the same thing with a full-length mirror against your bedroom wall; secure the string of lights with small Command hooks on the wall, flush against the mirror border.
Fill Glass Jars and Vases with Fairy Lights
This method of using fairy lights in your bedroom is a little more unique (and imaginative).
If you really want to hold these lights true to their name, consider filling clear vases or large glass jars with small fairy lights to give the illusion of actual fairies.
For those nostalgic for summertime nights, these jars also take on the appearance of caught lightning bugs (especially if you use flickering or blinking fairy lights).
The best type of fairy lights to use for jars are battery-powered fairy lights. This way, you can avoid the bulkiness and hassle of electrical plugs and outlets.
Although they’re more expensive over time since you have to keep replacing batteries, they look better and can switch on and off as you please.
Set Up Fairy Light Trees
We all know the joy of setting up Christmas trees and even mini Christmas trees with lights strung around. But what if I told you that you could achieve a similar effect practically any time of the year?
You can buy fake foliage or tree branches for your bedroom, they require no maintenance but have all the effects of a real tree.
String them up with your favorite colors and types of fairy lights to make your bedroom into a forest-like escape that any fairy would love to enter.
Create a Door Curtain of Fairy Lights
This is best done with lightweight fairy lights (preferably the kind powered by batteries so you don’t have to deal with reaching the outlets). But with a little creativity and patience, you can hang individual strings of fairy lights from the top of your bedroom door frame to create a curtain of twinkles.
Remember those beaded string curtains that used to be so popular hanging from door frames? Well, I like to think of this as a classier, more modern take on those.
Just be careful about how you install these, as you don’t want to get them caught in a shut door.
For example, if your bedroom door opens towards you from the inside, opt to hang the lights from the door frame on the outside of your bedroom.
Conversely, if your bedroom door opens outwards from the inside, hang up the fairy lights from the inside of your room.
Create Fairy Light Wall Art
For fans of hanging photos on their bedroom walls, this is a great way to use fairy lights.
String them up against the wall in your chosen pattern using Command hooks to secure them.
Then, use small clothespins to hook your photos onto the lights (or stick the photos to the wall separately from the lights).
You can also create art on your walls with fairy lights by arranging the lights into a pattern that spells out words or forms shapes.
This may take a little more planning and elbow grease, but it creates a really cool effect. This will set you apart from all the other fairy light users!
Line the Tops of Your Walls with Fairy Lights
To create a subtle border effect all around your bedroom, you can hang fairy lights in the edges where your walls meet the ceiling. Far enough away from your line of eyesight, this is a less blatant way to use string fairy lights in your bedroom. It also creates a really nice shadowy effect down the tops of your walls.
How Long Do Fairy Lights Last?
It’s important to note that if you plan to keep your fairy lights on every night, you will deplete the power quickly.
There’s a difference in the lifespan of battery-powered fairy lights compared to plug-in fairy lights. Battery-powered fairy lights will typically last only several hours when turned on (about 5-10 hours on average).
Of course, you can continue to replace the batteries for these lights and extend their life, but it will cost you more money consistently.
However, if you use plug-in lights, they will last much longer before the bulbs burn out. You can keep them turned on for hours of use, typically without having to worry about overheating. This means they are better suited for overnight use and they will last you months to years!
Are Fairy Lights a Fire Hazard?
Generally, fairy lights do not pose much fire risk.
These days, string lights and fairy lights are safer to avoid fire hazards. The bulbs don’t get up to a very high temperature to begin with since they’re often made with LED lights.
Typically, the fire hazard that people talk about with plug-in lights comes from the chance of electrical malfunctions. These often occur within the electrical wiring of your home when you leave lights plugged in for long periods of time.
This is why it’s important to buy high-quality and safety-approved fairy lights, and always make sure the electrical wiring in your home is up to code.
Battery-powered fairy lights are even less of a fire hazard since they don’t get very hot, and batteries won’t last much longer than a few hours anyway.
Can You Cut Fairy Lights?
When decorating your bedroom with fairy lights, you may have an inclination to shorten or cut your light string to the desired length. The important thing to note is that you can cut fairy lights, but only in certain circumstances.
You must be using USB or battery-powered fairy lights. And, the bulbs on the string must connect in parallel.
The bulbs need to get equal bolts of power at the same time with a direct connection to the batteries for this to work. Simply use a pair of scissors and snip between the bulbs to your desired length.
Final Thoughts
There are plenty of ways to use fairy lights to spruce up your bedroom. Whether you string them around your window frames, decorate your bed’s headboard, or create ambiance with jars filled with them, they are very versatile.
