Upcycled shades into DIY solar lights

I L♥VE vintage light shades. Whenever I see them cheap at garage sales or the ReStore, I buy them. These shades cost between fifty cents and a dollar each.

I knew I wanted to repurpose them in some way and this is what I came up with.

I bought some inexpensive plastic solar lights ($10.11 for 8 lights) from Amazon and just used the solar lids. The lid has the solar panel, light bulb and battery compartment.You could also buy outdoor solar lights at the dollar store, but they never have them at mine. In the past, I’ve used old solar lids off of broken/weathered lights. It’s easy and inexpensive to replace the batteries if they’ve stopped recharging.

I measured the bottom inside of the shades, then used a compass to mark circles on scrap wood and cut them out on the band saw. They don’t need to be perfect, just approximately the right size, as long as they fit under the shade.

Then I sprayed the wood circles with adhesive and applied some aluminum foil to the circles. You need to spray adhesive both the wood and the foil, then let dry for a few minutes until tacky. As you can probably tell, I also recycled some used foil, instead of using brand new. The aluminum foil helps reflect the light off of the soil under the shade.

We live in a very windy area, so the caps need to be attached somehow. I  applied silicone to the tops of the shades, placed the solar caps on top and weighted them down while the silicone dried. I used silicone so that I would be able to remove the lid when the batteries wear out and need to be replaced.

One of my favorite parts of this project was getting to use an antique compass that belonged to my grandfather!

Place the foil wrapped circles on the ground (foil side up) and place the shade over the circle. The light will reflect off of the foil and light up the shade.

The lights turned out wonderful. I placed them around our yard and near the entrance gate.

They look good during the day and awesome at night!

These DIY solar lights cost me about $8 for all four. $1.26 each for the lights lids and $3.00 for all of the shades. I had everything else in the shop. Plus, I still have four more lids to use in the future.

What do you think? Do you like them?

Vi snakkes! (“See you later” in Norwegian)

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