The Insider: How to make your fairy lights fantastic

Get some swanky fairy lights that need no adornment from Habitat

You may think the time of the year for fairy lights has passed – but I think all year is good for fairy lights. Why? Because they're lovely! They add warmth to any room – so don't pack them away now the tree's down. Get creative…

Trim shady

Via Google Translate (and looking hard at the pictures), make like Swedish blogger Rebecca and create fabric fairy-light lampshades from plastic cups and old scraps of material: http://rebeccasdiy.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/diy-ljusslinga-med-lampskarmar.html

Sweet touch

Do similar with cupcake holders, paper cups, even Quality Street wrappers (the coloured bits), which my friend Holly has done; she then arranged her newly multi-coloured string on a wall in a heart shape (mould some wire, then wind your lights around it and hang from a pair of hooks).

Insider tip

If you have giant jam jars or a glass vase, stuff your fairy lights inside. Great for dingy corners.

Lightbulb moment

A bit more unusually: if, like me, you have a box of old-school light bulbs you haven't quite got around to recycling, chuck them in something fruit-bowl-sized (glass, ideally), put it in a fireplace or somewhere prominent, and bury your fairies underneath. Beautiful.

Right hook

I have some giant fairy lights – aka festoon lights (about £30, Amazon) – that have languished in a cupboard for years. Then I saw a photo of a set hanging down, from a single hook, on a clean white wall. Very industrial chic. Now mine soon shall be, too.

Lit and polished

Alternatively, just get some swanky fairy lights that need no adornment. Have a look round Habitat (ideally while its sale is still on).

Find Kate's blog on affordable interiors at yourhomeislovely.com