Create A DIY Outdoor Solar Lamp With Simple Dollar Tree Materials

Sitting outside on a summer evening is one of life's great pleasures, but the last thing you want to do is turn on a bright electric light. You'll need some lighting, of course, and candles are great, but they can be impractical at times. Maybe you have children or pets running around, or you might want to avoid the mess of dealing with candle wax. Solar lighting is the perfect solution, and Dollar Tree has a multitude of inexpensive ways to create do-it-yourself outdoor solar lamps and other solutions using materials found in their stores.

Most people think of using the Dollar Tree outdoor solar lights — the ones that come on yard stakes — in the original manner intended: pop the stake into the ground and wait for the sun to work its magic. However, these handy little light producers are easy and safe to deconstruct, and once the main components have been taken apart, the solar lights become the basis for simple DIY craft projects that can light up everything from an outdoor table to deck steps to a grill. You can even create a hanging chandelier like Chas' Crazy Creations did using a Dollar Tree hanging flower planter basket (the kind that usually holds a coconut fiber liner), a solar light, and some shiny dangly crystals.

If you spend a lot of time outside during good weather (or all the time if you live in a temperate climate), then you know the magic of having a comfortable, inviting outdoor living space. For example, Lisa Vanderpump gave her outdoor space a living room feel by including elements such as a rug, a television, comfortable chairs, and homey touches like flowers in vases. But the other touch you could add to give an outdoor area an indoor feel is a lamp. A TikTok user wasted no time devising a way to create a DIY outdoor solar lamp using a few things found at Dollar Tree.

The DIY lamp begins with bowls that are glued together base to base and rim to rim using E6000 permanent bond adhesive. The bowls can be any design since @hometalk — the TikTok user who posted the video — painted the lamp base, which was made from about six glued-together bowls. Once the bowls are all glued to one another, two Styrofoam discs are hot-glued together and then glued into one open bowl end so that the light topped with the solar panel can fit into it. A lampshade of your choice is fitted over the creation to complete the look.

If you have begun to picture all the ways Dollar Tree items can light up your life using their inexpensive outdoor solar lights, this hack will frame your point of view in a whole new way. ChicOnTheCheap suggests purchasing 4-inch by 6-inch acrylic photo frames at Dollar Tree — she uses the ones that have a slight angle with an integral base. By adding a little hot glue to the bottom of the base and then attaching the top of the solar light (the part with the solar panel and the light itself), she creates a solar light that hangs onto anything.

The hanging picture frame/solar light can hang from just about anything with a flat surface — like the deck steps ChicOnTheCheap shows in the YouTube video. But it also hangs from gas fire pit tables, picnic or end tables, or Adirondack chairs. Other options include illuminating the corners of a buffet table or the beer coolers at a party that is extending late into the night when it might be extra helpful to see where those heavy, ice-laden chests are!