Coconut Tiki lights...
A step-by-step guide on how to make them at home
The essence of Tiki is escapism… making your way to a world where faux Polynesian inspired drinks, music and decor are a way of life, not just a faded illustration on a thrift store album cover. Somewhere the drinks are cold, the garnishes effortlessly OTT and fashion is just downright… cool 😊🌺
One of the corner stones of this particular brand of distraction, are ambient bars that have a tendency to avoid natural daylight. With a penchant instead for dark corners accented mysteriously with glowing gems of coloured glass and puffer fish (?) – occasionally sprinkled with a tasteful selection of mid mod lighting – depending of course on your preferred version of tiki bar style.
In this article we break down the steps needed to make your own tiki accent lights out of coconut shells – for use on table-tops or strung together across the ceiling of your own home bar – bringing the enchantment and mystery of your favourite tiki bar direct to your door.
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Supplies needed
- A coconut!
- An electric drill
- A course file or rasp
- Paring knife or a spoon
- Sandpaper – a couple of different grades if possible, going from rough to light
- A jug
- Twine to hang each lantern with
- 1-3 Battery powered ‘tea lights’ for each lantern
Let's get started!
Step 1: Drain the water
Hold the coconut firmly in one hand with the three indents or ‘eyes’ facing upwards and use your drill to make a hole through two of them. Tip the coconut over and allow the water to drain into your jug.
Now make the most of these subtle, nutty-tasting juices by putting them in a cocktail with a little coconut rum, a dash of lime juice and plenty of crushed ice. Natural, refreshing and authentically Caribbean!
Step 2: Smooth the outside
Using a file or rasp, take the husk off of the outside of the coconut.
If you don’t have either of these tools, a hacksaw blade or a blunt knife can be used to get the worst of it off – just be careful with your fingers.
Once the husk is removed you can start with the course sandpaper, making sure any of the rough marks left by the file are sanded out. Then finish off with the light grit paper.
The level you take your sanding to is based on how textured you’d like your exterior to be. We didn’t go too heavy on ours as we like it looking quite organic.
Step 3: Cut the top off
We want to make a cut as high up the coconut as we can – about a fingers width from the top – just beneath the ‘eyes’.
So to start with, run a pencil round the top of the coconut to create a line you can follow when you start cutting.
If you’ve a vice then we recommend using this to hold your coconut with, if not then you’ll need to brace it firmly against a hard surface with one hand.
Then, with the other hand, lightly but firmly make your first guiding cuts along the line that you marked off.
Once you’ve made a few cuts into the shell and created a line for the saw to run through, dig in a bit harder and continue till you’ve cut the top off of the nut. This piece can then be discarded.
Note – if you want to eat the flesh afterwards, make sure your tools are clean!
Step 4: Hollow out the inside
To help release the flesh from the shell, microwave your coconut for around 30-60 seconds, or place it in the oven on a mid heat for 5-10 mins. Either way, be careful when you take them out as they’ll be extremely hot to start with.
Now use a knife to cut into the white flesh as if you were marking segments of an orange. Then start digging behind each piece and pry it out chunk by chunk.
Because of the angle of entry, you’ll find that it might turn into a bit of a hack-fest at the bottom. Persevere and get those last pieces out, then give the shell a good wash to remove any dust and put aside to dry.
And if you want to put every part of this amazing nut (actually it’s a drupe) to good use, then take a look at our simple recipe on how to make coconut rum at home.
Step 5: Drill holes in the coconut
What we’re looking to do here is create a pattern of holes for the lights to shine out from when placed inside.
You can approach this in two ways:
- Create a random or freeform pattern;
- Or you can draw a pattern on the shell of the coconut that you follow when drilling holes. Admittedly this takes more effort, but think of the possibilities – how awesome would a tiki face look, or even waves cresting around the sides?
For both of these approaches you can create greater visual interest by varying the size of the drill bit.
Whatever path you take, you’ll want to start by holding the coconut in one hand (a vice isn’t needed at this point) and, pressing it onto an old cushion or soft material, begin drilling your holes through the exterior of the shell.
The way we did it was to:
- Start at the top with the first few holes.
- Then laying the coconut on its side we made holes roughly the same distance from each other around the circumference, turning and drilling as we went. It was quite a fast paced affair and we weren’t overly precious around where the holes were placed.
- Then we changed the drill bit down to a smaller size and did the same again, but this time drilling the holes in between the gaps made by the larger holes.
Step 6: Smooth the inside
All this drilling and coconut hacking will have created a messy old interior, so for the sake of your inner perfectionist, you may want to sand down the interior to make it a bit smoother. However, if you’re banging out a load of these for a party, you could probably skip this step to save time.
To start with, place your sandpaper grit side up on a bench or table, and holding the piece of shell upside down, rub the cut edge across the paper until all the rough edges are taken off.
This next part could be a little fiddly, as depending on how big your coconut is and how high up you made your cut, the angle of entry may well be quite restrictive. Regardless, you’ll want to push your sandpaper in as far as you can with your fingers – and if they don’t reach to the bottom of the coconut, ball up the sandpaper and use the back end of a piece of cutlery to push it in and around with. You can be quite rough with this as ultimately it’s doubtful anyone is going to see inside your lamp shade.
Step 7: Finishing touches
Run your length of twin through a couple of the top holes (the cut edge) and string up your light as needed. Drop in 1-3 of your battery powered ‘tea lights’ and away you go!
We recommend stringing a few of these lights together in a line across your room, or alternatively, using them as ambient lighting on table or bar tops. For maximum impact, they look fantastic when the light shines onto a flat dark surface like some kind of crazy tiki disco ball 😉
We put a whole lotta love, lime and rum into our work, so if you think your friends would find this article useful, we’d be thrilled if you could share it with them!
Thank you. Mahalo.
