Our Top 10 Best Christmas Light Displays

As the Chriistmas season is upon us we thought it would be nice to share with you our favourite Christmas light displays in 2014 that we have enjoyed to watch.

It is amazing the effort that people go to spread happiness to there village and towns.

If you still need lights to decorate your house then have a look at our website today.

Hope you enjoy and let us know via our Twitter and Facebook pages which was your enjoy

Festive festoons

Although many of us have plenty of experience when it comes to creating festive cheer with Christmas decorations, each year always seems to bring about something new in the way of wreaths, tree hangings and ornaments.

Every Christmas tree has its fair share of lights, having become an integral part of modern day Christmas experiences ever since their first invention in 1882, when Thomas Edison decided Christmas needed that extra sparkle when he decided to hang his innovative light bulbs outside his home. But what about going that extra mile this festive year and making your home stand out by unleashing your Christmas spirit, marking the path for Santa or illuminating a particular display?

Whether at home or in your workplace, our range of lighting solutions offer cost-effective, weather-proof, energy-saving solutions which are brighter, more varied and even customisable to your needs.

Choose between festoon lights or party lights for that extra sparkle whether hanging, shaping or displaying objects, ornaments or decorations.

A clever marketing tactic, festoon and party lights can even be used to attract buyers during their Christmas shop or create a festive ambience during Christmas parties.

From beautiful symbolic shapes right through to festoon and LED drapes, you can create a Christmas display for your home or business that will be bigger and better than last year with our range of lights.

Whether you want temporary fittings or more permanent fixtures we can advise on the right fittings for you without pulling on the purse strings.

Contact us today.

All Hallows Eve lighting

You may be forgiven for thinking that Halloween is a staunchly horrific American tradition, the crazy costumes, pranks, menace and decorations surrounding the occasion may all sound like child’s play but the concept of Halloween is becoming very firmly established this side of the Atlantic.

Gone are the days of considering the commonly regarded Pagan holiday as an excuse to prey on the gullible and here are the days where All Hallows Eve is one of the most highly anticipated holidays of the year!

With this in mind, the arrival of October can only mean one thing: getting your costume, ghoulish masks, make-up and pumpkins at the ready, with the next step deciding what you will be doing to celebrate.

If you’re past the age of 12, it is likely trick or treating is off the cards, which can only mean one thing – party!

Autumnal evenings provide the perfect backdrop to create your own scarefest, still dark nights, and rustling leaves, but are they enough to create the right setting? Whether you opt to host your party, indoors, outdoors or both, having the right lighting to set the perfect mood, tone and atmosphere will be vital to ensuring your Halloween party is enough to keep your guests talking until next Halloween – if they get to see the night through...

At The Garden Lighting Shop, we understand that Halloween is mostly about the sensory experience, the sights, the smells and the sounds.

All of our festoon, party and LED rope lights provide perfect opportunities to enhance one of these senses and can be used both in and outdoors, easily fixed and removed, making them re-usable all year round.

Here we bring you our guide to the three types and how they can be used to set the eerie stage for your themed party:

Festoon lights
With a variety of colours and brightness of LED lamps to choose from, our 240v mains operated festoon lights are robust and can be applied in either domestic or commercial fittings indoors or outdoors to illuminate marquees, gazebos, or a festive Halloween display if you wish to draw particular attention to something spooky.

The added bonus of the lights from our ranges is that you can fully customise the length and harness materials to be shaped around your requirements, so that if you want to make them a more permanent fixture to withstand all weather conditions, you can.

LED Rope lights

Seamless to hang and with enhanced flexibility for simple shaping and moulding our ranges of LED rope lights offer excellent versatility. In a great choice of colours, you can also decide just how bright or dim you want the festivities at your Halloween gathering to be. Do you want to recreate the ambience of candlelight or illuminate some of your garden fittings such as ornaments or statues to create lurking shadows that offer elements of mysteriousness?

Party Lights

Low voltage and long lasting for energy efficiency and practicality, our party lights are made from LED shatterproof lamps which are available in a variety of styles from coloured lanterns through to replica oil lamps and warm coloured bulbs making them ideal for displays and generic decoration for application throughout a series of festive events throughout the year in or out doors.

If you want to achieve atmosphere at your party as a temporary fixture then these lights offer perfect malleability to be shaped or hung elegantly or eerily.

With a range of lighting solutions to choose from at The Garden Lighting Shop we’re leaving it up to you whether you want to give your  friends and family a trick or treat this Halloween. Contact us today to discuss your lighting needs, we’re always happy to help.

Illuminate your business with festoon lighting

The ambience and mood may not be the first thing that you consider when planning out the design of your business, however as one of the methods of enhancing the overall experience of your customers whether shopping, dining or negotiating, careful attention should be paid to these aspects.

By doing so you can ensure that any extensive planning that has gone into the rest of your design, layout or business is showcased and nurtured in the right way while guaranteeing maximum comfort for those spending time in your working areas.

Lighting is the perfect method of improving the atmosphere of your establishment. Paired with the right wall colours and in keeping with your designs, lighting can showcase your products and make customers want to spend more time in the comfort of your company’s building.

Restaurant lighting

A restaurant is the perfect example of how lighting can encourage relaxation and mood, setting the tone for how your customers should feel. While it should hold a practical solution for customers to be able to read menus and see what they are eating, the lighting’s design and implementation can make room for some wonderful opportunities for experimentation.

Careful attention should be made to placement and brightness and particular consideration should be given to the heights of your ceilings, colours of walls, flooring and upholstery as well as your furniture arrangement.

DON’T- Picking permanent lighting fixtures for your restaurant that highlights your table arrangement, when you plan to rearrange furniture in the future will not be beneficial or cost effective for your business.

Bright lighting is a practical solution if you have a darker decor or wish to highlight aspects of your room, however dimmer lighting is often favoured for its cosier and more intimate feel – whichever you opt for make sure that it is evenly distributed so that it will not highlight one customer over another or make them feel uncomfortable.

DO - Consider incorporating various types of lighting to highlight one area over another. If you have a bar, it is likely you will want this to be brighter than the table lighting so that your patrons can see what they are drinking and your staff can see the drinks that they are making.

Some restaurants are open throughout the day, and if yours is one of them, designing your room layout and decor is likely to be impacted by this. The sun is likely to be one of the biggest factors to consider when choosing lighting during the day so contemplate varied lighting solutions or lighting that has adjustments for dimness and brightness.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner all provoke different requirements for lighting intensities. While breakfast should be bright, lunch should be moderate, they say to boost fast turnover rates and dinner lighting should be dim with an intimate and leisurely feel. 

Think of the sun as your base light level and work up from that, combining a mixture or accent and feature lighting can provide visual interest as well enhance the decor of your room. Why not considered coloured bulbs, for extra interest?

DON’T – Overpowering a room with too many types of lighting can be overwhelming and off putting, your customers don’t want to go home with a headache so be experimental and stylish but reserved.

The use of LED lighting solutions is growing in popularity among restaurants, bars and shopping businesses, not only for their cost efficiency, using up to 90% less energy than normal bulbs but they are also available in various colours and can be used to create a variety of moods, adding luxury without the price tag. – Take a look at our range of LED lamps and light bulbs.

Festoon fun

Festoon harness lighting and rope lights come in a variety of styles, colours and lengths which boast versatility, practically and fun in a diverse range of applications. While decorative and malleable into any shape or design that is required, they also provide the perfect balance of ambience and mood which can particularly efficient in a restaurant or dining setting.

Although completely at home in the outdoors, our festoon lighting are becoming increasingly more popular in internal display and functional applications due to the encompassing affect that they have in the situations that they are used.

One of our more recent projects saw our 2330 series festoon harness lights (pictured above) installed in the Bar BBQ on Ice pop up restaurant offering a comprehensive lighting solution that was completely bespoke and tailored entirely to Alexander Waterworth Interior’s, who designed the layout, requirements. 

You can see from their application that these lights were both functional in the day and at night, without being too overbearing or dim and boasted the second purpose of decoration for added ambience. As the restaurant was a pop up shop, their temporary fixture allows them to be used again when the bar decides to relocate to a second location.

Now shortlisted for a major prize at the Restaurant and Bar Design Awards which are set to take place later this month, we think the bar and designer Alexander Waterworth have show just how applicable an  d attractive festoon lighting can be in a business environment –

We wish them luck!

The 2330 range

We think the attraction to the 2330 range possibly came from the tailor-made aspect which allows you to cater your festoon lighting to your individual requirements with a bespoke harness solution which is manufactured in the UK.

Made from a tough black PVC and a varied selection of lamp holders, a designer or business owner can choose the entire design to fit their specifications from deciding what distance from the power supply the lamps need to be right through to the individual spacing measurements between the lamps.

Choose between various lamp designs including the shatter-proof golf ball lamps, or Retro 40w lamps.

Indoor or outdoor?

Our NEW extended range of mains powered and low voltage festoon lighting solutions are perfect for outdoor functions or more permanent indoor fixtures wherever functional or decorative lighting is required.

If you are a domestic, commercial or public customer, and have a project that you think that our festoon lighting could be a part of then please get in contact with us today.

The Garden is the New Living Room

There was once a time when the garden was considered an afterthought for people who were buying a new home or decorating. It was a place where you went if the weather was warm enough for sunbathing and apart from that, it was usually a neglected space.

Today however the garden has become a highly valued, important part of the home. It can even be what sets the standard of your overall house. The garden’s reputation as a secondary accessory that came with a house has developed into it being an important space with the potential to do lots of creative things.

If you have been to some extent neglecting your garden or think that you have not used it to its maximum potential then you may well be correct. 

However there are lots of ways in which you can update your garden and transform it into a space that you are proud of, even without spending very much time or money at all.

Here are some ideas for you to have a think about...

 You may have noticed that many modern gardens feature lots of different textures in one space. Regardless of how large or small your garden is, this effect is easily achieved.

Take a look at the garden to the left. This imaginative design has combined grass, decking, slabs, pebbles, and sand (around the tree) all in one.

The merging of a range of different textures is a modern development which allows you to structure your garden in a unique and interesting way.

Here you have a delicate pavement – identified by the slabs which leads a route though the natural grass to an area of decking where friends can gather and enjoy one another’s company. The tree even looks as if it has been planted on the decking itself; a clever way of merging the artificial with nature, bringing the whole garden together.

Vegetables

Part of what has made the garden such an important room in the home is the increasing convention for gardeners to grow their own fruit and vegetables.

This concept has gained a lot of momentum over the last few years with increasing numbers of people taking an interest in gardening as a whole, and the joy of nurturing one’s own food and eating it with the added satisfaction that one’s own hard work has literally put food on the table

Colours

One of the elements of a garden that appeals to most people is a lot of different colours. By adding plants of all sorts of different colours to your garden it instantly becomes a vibrant and inviting room that everybody feels welcomed by.

Daffodils, Crocus, Polyanthus, Alliums, and Gazanias are just a few of the plants that would add spectacular colour to your garden.

Remember to research which plants thrive at what times of the year, just because it is winter does not mean that you have to have a dull, bare garden; plants such as Viola Tricolour, Sedum 'Herbstfreude', and  Erica carnea thrive in colder conditions and can therefore keep your garden looking colourful all year round. 

Highlight Features

To truly bring your garden up to the standards that have been set today, you need to think hard about your landscape lighting. 

Landscape lighting serves a variety of functions including decoration, guiding you in the dark, and security.

The lights on the left for example can be used to highlight particular features in the garden that you are particularly proud of. 

If you have an impressive water feature that you would like to draw attention to in the evenings, using this type of lighting can achieve just that and make your garden look truly spectacular.

Likewise, if you spend a lot of time in the garden during the evenings – this is something you probably enjoy during the summer especially – then these small spotlights can give you a little bit of guidance as to where to stand, and can help to set a relaxed atmosphere.

 

Sociable Space

   

 The garden is the new living room which means that it needs to be just as welcoming, calming, and comfortable as its indoor counterpart.

Prepare your garden with cosy chairs which are not hard on the back, but can happily be used for several hours over dinner.

Finish your garden design with some stunning, temporary festoon lighting. You might choose to add brightly-coloured festoon lights that bring your garden to life, or classy, refined, economically-run LED rope lamps which look pretty without costing too much money.

At Garden Lighting you will notice that most of our outdoor party lights are long-lasting, low voltage lights which means that they will not need replacing for a long time and will not vastly affect your electricity bills either. 

If you would like to find out more about our outdoor lighting and how it can transform your garden, contact us on 01773 541 003.