How to make outdoor light fixtures

We threw an outdoor engagement and a game watching party last weekend.  Our backyard is pretty large and is not well lit at night.  We have flood lights at the house, but they do not make much difference toward the back of the yard where we set up the projector.  I ended up making a few lights that were absolutely free and took less than 20 minutes to put together.

First I gathered some acrylic boxes in my basement (I think you could use anything that is clear or see through for this project... tupperware? storage boxes? a chicken wire box? acrylic serving tray?).  I have used these as organizational containers in my pantry previously.  I also pulled out a few strands of christmas lights, ornament hooks, picture hanging wire and tape.

For one of the boxes I used a box of net lights that I simply wrapped around the box.  I used one piece of table to secure the start.  I did the entire project while the lights were plugged in.  This helped make sure that the lights were distributed evenly and of course to check that they were going to still work when I was finished.

After wrapping the entire net over and over again around the box, I used a single strand of lights as a grid to hold the lights in place.  The cord needs to finish in the center so the boxes hang flat.  I used the ornament hooks to secure the cord in place (any small piece of wire would work... even bread bag twisty-ties).

Shane came in while I was working on these and he was in the mood to help.  He drilled small holes in the middle of all four sides and we threaded some left over picture hanging wire through each.

I had made 2 lights, but I only had one net set of lights, so one of the fixtures was made only with single strand lights.  I used 3 strands of lights on the inside of the box and then wrapped 2 strands around the outside to hold the lights in.  My boxes did not have tops.  In the end I liked the single-strand-only version the best.

The end result:

You can see both in the picture below.

Once it got dark these homemade fixtures gave off a surprising amount of light.  We hung them using 2 100 foot extension cords (unfortunately bright orange ones).  My original plan was to hang them using a metal chain that I found, but since our lowest branches were 25 feet off the ground our only option was the extension cord itself.