broke college kid with no room makin' some tiki

Hey everybody i'm a college student here in So Cal studying auto technology at a local vocational school
i LOVE all this retro-phile tiki-ness thats all over this site

problem is student=majorly broke
so i drool over everyones mug collections and am ridiculously envious of everyone with a home tiki bar

but now the point of this post, in my search for tiki that i can afford/actually have room for i have to decided to combine my skill set and my tiki-lovin'. i decided to tiki-fy my 1989 Bronco

to this end i have started finding little additions for the interior
i found a coconut monkey at one of the local Goodwills:

and a kukui nut lei at a antique store:

but most excitingly at that same antique store i found a tiny glass float and pufferfish:

these are both probably about 3" diameter

so my plan is to make tiny lamp combo out of the fish and float for the interior of the bronco
i was stuck though, i had no idea how to light those suckers
a wander through target inspired me when i found these:

a tiny string of lights that are battery powered!
now i just had to hack up the light string to shorten it and to get the light spacing to where i liked it
well after about a half hour online trying to look up christmas light wiring and how to cut up a string of lights i decided to be a little ballsy and fall back on what i thought i knew about electricity and wiring

turns out i knew more than i gave myself credit for and
BAM:

i didn't get any in progress pictures because i wasn't even thinking of posting this project on here until i had finished the string of lights already

well thats enough for tonight
tune in next time for me breaking into the pufferfish/trying to make a hole in the float/getting the lights to stay in the fish and float/trying to tie a net around the float/whatever else it's going to take...man i have a lot of work to do...haha

Hank, welcome to Tiki Central! It's always good to see the next generation picking up the tiki torch, stay away from the brightly colored Tiki City tikis and you'll do just fine :D

Here is a compilation of links about netting glass floats, that should get you started.

This link has discussion on making a pufferfish lamp. The pictures from the first page are gone but there are some pics later in the thread.

Good luck & HAVE FUN!

Nice! But you need to do something about the color of your truck... Don't you know white is the least tiki color? I would go for "Tiki Central green". Gabba gabba!

What a great idea! The project you are embarking on should be really something, I can't wait to see it evolve! There is something about being able to pair your love of tiki with a creative aspect of your self that is so satisfying! Way to go!
~Zero