For our gun-lovers, we showed you longtime Homie Beretta Fleur‘s shotgun shell Christmas lights last year. This year, we bring you her guide to making them yourself!
We got this idea from Moore N Moore Sporting Clays shooting range. It’s a great way to repurpose plastic shells you aren’t going to or are unable to reload.
Materials:
- 1 string multi-colored or white Christmas lights (the small kind)
- About 50 shells of multiple colors (20–12 gauge work best, 28 gauge may be too narrow)
- Hot glue gun with a good number of glue sticks (6-10)
- Pliers
- Soap and water
Instructions:
Basically what you do is you collect a bunch of shells, and give them a good washing in hot soapy water since they’ll have powder all over them.
You can separate them by color so you can figure out some kind of pattern that pleases you. Or just go random if you aren’t that anal.
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Finally, hot glue the open end of the shells to your string of lights. You may need pliers to smush the open end a bit closed so that it makes better contact with the light string. But we just glued the edges of the shell to the wiring and so far, after two years, they’ve stayed intact.
Happy Holidays!
Psst: For you non-DIY types, you could always buy them on Amazon.
disclaimer: these are illegal in some places. please check local laws regarding ammunition. these may not be live ammo, but that doesn’t mean much to some state/local governments. i do know that in New York City (and possibly state) and in Massachusetts, these are illegal unless you own a shotgun of a matching gauge.
Growing up in the sticks with a hunter for a father, there were boxes of unused shotgun shell blanks in the closet, spent shell casing on the floor surrounding Daddy’s basement workbench awaiting refillng, and in little clutches of forgottenness all over the garage. I wish I had had this tutorial back then!!
This is a fantastic idea.
I am a tad concerned about how to fix a single bulb that goes out though, if the ends are glued shut…
But other than that, this would be awesome to try!
Instead of using glue, take a hole punch and make a hole on the very edge of the crimp of the shell opening for the wires to pass through. Then you can somewhat re-crimp/close the open end of the shell and they will look a little more realistic (like loaded ammo).
AND these are absolutely AMAZING! I need to go make a set now…
So question–did you line them up on the colour of the light, or did you use white lights?
Almost all of our shells are red, so I’m wondering if it would be better to do them on red lights, or if it would look better over white? I could probably test this with a flashlight, but. In case someone knows. ^_^
Awesome! My hubby would love this.
Love!!!
Jingle Bells
Shotgun Shells…..
Happy Holidays! We did 2 strands, one white and one color. It looks prettier when you match the shells with the similar color of lights, and it also helps you make a pattern.
If you want to wash the shells really well, and don’t want to waste any time about it bag them in a mesh bag and toss them in the dish washer.
Eesh. Watch for exposure to lead. Great idea though!!!