DIY Rope Light Word Art

Do you have boring, vacant wall space in your home? Have you been wanting to put your creativity and inner craftsman to the test but have had no idea where to start? Then you should definitely consider adding a personal touch to your home décor by creating your own unique LED rope light sign. LED rope light is long-lasting and easy to configure into beautiful, loopy lettering. Plus, you can adjust the size of the letters to cover medium to large amounts of wall space that would otherwise require a large, expensive painting or various amounts of smaller artwork to fill. Spell out your family motto, an important value, or your child’s name and immediately alter the ambiance of any room to match it.

Here’s what you need:

• ½ inch 50 ft. LED rope light and rope caps (depends on the length of the word you want to spell)

• ½ inch rope light power cord with switch and connector

• Hanging clips for the rope light

• Clear, plastic zip ties

• Drill with a screwdriver bit

• Heavy duty Duct or painter’s tape

• Weights to hold down the rope light

• Ruler, measuring stick, or laser level

• Chalk or pencil

• Scissors

• Someone to help you

Here's how you do it:

1. Once you have all your materials, plug your LED rope light into the wall to make sure it is working properly.

2. Plan where you want to hang your word. Use a ruler, measuring stick, or other tool to draw a straight line where you want the bases of your letters to rest. (Keep in mind where the nearest outlet is and which end of the rope light you will plug into the outlet!)

3. Configure the rope light into the word you want on the floor in front of your wall. Use weights to keep it your letters in position while you tape your letters in place.

4. Attach your rope light word to the wall with more heavy duty tape, making sure the bottoms of your letters are touching the baseline you drew earlier. (Hint: You or your partner holds each letter in place while the other tapes it down.)

5. After your word is taped to the wall, repeat the following steps for each letter:

   • Choose a corner of the letter to start on.

   • Remove the tape holding it to the wall. The other pieces of the letter that are taped to the wall should hold the majority of the letter in place.

   • Remove the tape that was holding the letter in its shape and use zip ties to hold it together instead. If you opted to use an incandescent rope light, make sure all the tape is removed before leaving your word on for long periods of time.

   • Visually gauge the places where you will need to attach your clips to the wall (usually where the tape was) and mark these places using chalk or a pencil.

   • Place your clips into the proper positions and screw them in.

   • Snap the rope light into the clips and pick another section of the letter to repeat the process until you finish your word.

6. Once you’ve completed attaching your word to the wall, cut off any excess rope light that you don’t need (look closely at the cut marks on the rope light) and cap off the end of the rope.

7. Plug in your LED rope light. Voilà! You’re done.

That's it for this tutorial. Have you done any awesome DIY projects using ropelight?  Tell us in the comments below or on Facebook, Twitter, or Pinterest!