11 illuminating ways to light up your life (and home) with LED light strips

Colorful lights, if done right, can look cool and futuristic. LED light strips have come a long way, which means you can ditch the year-round Christmas lights for something cleaner-looking. What’s nice about LED strips, though, is that they’re thin and flexible, so you can put them places traditional bulbs can’t go, like under cabinets and in drawers. This means they’re also functional — they can shed a little light on what’s going on in the back of the fridge or under the bed.

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Your options for where you want to put LED strips are limited mostly by your imagination, where you have an outlet, and what you don’t mind adhering something sticky to.
We’ve rounded up some Instructables and how-to videos to help you get started. If you plan to tackle any of these projects, just make sure to use caution.

 

 Open-riser stairs look especially cool with LED lights, and they’re also functional, because those gaps can be especially treacherous at night, but you might be too blurry-eyed to want a full-fledged assault on your retinas. As you can see in this Instructables tutorial, there are ways to make the lights turn on automatically as you head down for a midnight snack.

Read more: http://www.digitaltrends.com/home/led-light-strip-ideas/