Changing the Color of LED String Lights

Halloween was coming and I wanted to use battery powered LED string lights to illuminate around our pumpkins and a witch figure in the yard.

Problem was that I wanted to illuminate the pumpkins with orange lights and the witch with purple lights.  Pickings were slim on Amazon for these color choices, especially the orange.  The orange lights available were either too short, not rated for outdoor use, or a combination of both.

After striking out, I had the idea of changing the light color myself.  I had a fresh batch of standard warm white outdoor rated lights that I had recently purchased for a camping trip.

I asked my wife if she had any orange paint among her craft supplies, and she produced a tangerine orange acrylic paint.  I tried it on a couple of the individual LED lights with promising results, so I dug out a purple paint as well.  Next I laid out the three strands in the garage using some masking tape to provide tension.

I grabbed a couple of Q-Tips and got to work dabbing each light with the acrylic paint.  I could see that I had a problem where some of the lights would be sticking to the paper when the paint dried, so I took a cooler and elevated the strands so that they were suspended in the air.  I touched up the LEDs that still had a whitish color.

Overall the results were impressive.  The orange had a bright orange glow which was exactly what I was looking for.  The purple was OK, but the brightness of the LEDs was diminished by the paint, the purple looks better in the picture because the camera picks them up well despite the fact that they are noticeably dimmer with the human eye.

Overall I was happy with the results and in a pinch it worked out great.  For the price of the LED string sets I'd always check for the color ahead of time, but when you can't find the color, size, or attribute you want creating you own is an option.

My favorite LED string lights are available on Amazon and sold by RTGS, I've had good success with the performance and reliability of these versus some of the other options.
You can find them on Amazon here.

Keeping a Wooden Train Track in Place

For Christmas our 11 month old received a Melissa and Doug Train Set and the accompanying train table to put it on.

It was obvious before it was even put together that it would be an issue to keep the train track together.

I looked at the set and came up with the fix of using 3M Command Strips to temporarily fix it in place.

I purchased a 48 pack of Small 3M Command Strips and got to work.

At each section of track I placed a Command Strip with the wall side on the table and tab facing inward in order to discourage tugging on them by the kids.
I placed the strip at the join between the two tracks so that both pieces of track are on the adhesive.

On the raised section of track I put a strip both below and on top of the pillars.

The results have been excellent.  The kids have played with the trains and tried to pull up the tracks to no avail.  Bonus to not have pieces of track distributed around the playroom.

So if you have a Melissa and Doug, Brio, or some other brand of wooden train set and want to keep it in place temporarily I recommend the 3M Command Strip solution!

Before

After