diy heart bulb

Here’s a super fun idea for using old lightbulbs.

Turn them into heart bulbs!

First we need to hollow out the old lightbulb. This is easy, but I think it seems a little intimidating. I had visions of exploding glass shattering everywhere.

No exploding glass. No shattering.

Promise. It takes less than ten minutes.

But you will need some needle-nose pliers and a screwdriver.

Here is the end of the lightbulb. Duh.

There is a flat metal piece that you need to bend up using the needle-nose pliers.

Clamp the needle-nose pliers onto the bent piece and twist until the metal piece comes off. You’ll now have a small hole in the end of the lightbulb.

Insert one side of the needle-nose pliers into the small hole and gently squeeze the pliers. The insulator glass breaks fairly easily.

Now this is what the end of the lightbulb will look like. You need to break the filament and pull it out. The glass is really thin and is easy to break. If your pliers are skinny enough you can use those (mine weren’t) or you can use the screwdriver. Just stick the screwdriver in and gently apply pressure until the filament breaks.

It all breaks inside the bulb then just dump it out.

And voila! The lightbulb is now empty.

But it’s still all white. No good.

The white is just a powder coating that can easily be scoured off using some salt. Pour a little salt into the lightbulb and shake it all around until the white has come off.

Dump out the salt and give the bulb a good rinse.

Not so hard, right?

I used my Cricut to cut out some hearts, but you could just as easily cut them out by hand. But they need to be skinny hearts so they can fit into the bulb.