Snowman Solar Stakes Lights

Snowman Solar Stake Lights

This is a fun project with items from the Dollar Tree for inexpensive Christmas stake lights.  Here are the items you will need to complete the lights.

1. Here are the supplies you'll need to make my Snowman Solar Light Stakes.  You will also need a sharp utility knife.

2. These two in a package sippy cups were purchased from the Dollar Tree Store.  You want the snowman.  Save the red ornament cup for another project.

3.  For the Snowman light, you don't need the cup lid, so transfer it to the red ornament.  Save the blue lid for another project.

4.  With a sharp utility knife, cut off the screw on top of the snowman.

 

 

5.  Color the existing embossed details of the snowman with permanent markers to outdoor craft paint.

 6.  You are ready for construction.  You need a battery operated solar light with a stake.  This one was purchased from the Dollar Tree.

 

7.  Take the light apart.  You will need only the solar light top and the post/stake.  Save the light cover for another project.

8.  Add a bead of hot glue to the top of the snowman.

 9.  Remove the protective light strip from the solar light top so that the light is activated.  Run a bead of hot glue around the top.

 

 10.  Align the top to the snowman, centering the top.  Hold and press the two together until the glue has set up.

 

 11.  Put  a large dollop of hot glue on the center bottom of the snowman cup.  Run a bead of hot glue around the top of the stake.  Hold two parts together until the glue sets up.  Then add another bead of hot glue around the joint between the snowman cup and the stake.

 12.  Snowman Solar Light Stake is done and ready to put into your holiday display.

 13.  Here is what your light will look like at night.  Total cost for each light is just over $2.00.  A quick, easy project.

Living in Long Beach, CA

≈Our little duplex (built in 1959) is located in Long Beach, California, at the corner of an alley and . . . well, the city considers the other a "street", but really, it's also an alley.  In Metropolitan cities, you often find these little places, which, because of a lack of uniform building codes during their early history, were "grandfathered in", and continue to exist even though they don't fit into any version of modern city planning designs.  And also, because our "Villa" is located in a rather "urban" setting, we have a remarkable number of people who use our alley.  We have friendly ones, like dog walkers, kids learning to ride their bikes, and Moms out for a walk with their babies in strollers.  And we have a whole mixed group of "unfriendlys".

The "Unfriendlys" are mostly comprised of people, or things, that make living in our location a drag.  Oversized, loud delivery trucks, which drop off supplies to the local business.  Groups of intoxicated adults, who use our alley to walk between two local bars.  Lazy employees, who drive down our alley at God awful speeds to work, instead of using the local city streets.  Various of "trash pickers".  And last, but not least, opportunistic thieves.

While we've lived here, thieves have stolen such a strange variety of things.  Plants right out of my garden.  A bear doorstop I kept by our kitchen door.  An exterior light fixture.  Halloween jack-o-lanterns.  And at least 100 other items.  They have broken into my daughter's car on several occasions.  One enterprising thief even walked into my first floor unit kitchen through the unlocked screen door, while I was in another room, to take what they could carry out.

CSULB Winter Festival Concert decorations at the First Congregational Church of Long Beach

As you can imagine, this setting is not ideal for someone like me, who likes to decorate for the holidays.  Anything that is put outside has the potential to be taken.  I have learned the hard way to think carefully about how I handle any decorating I do.  This year for Christmas, I decided to make some decorative solar lights.  I had seen something like them at Target, Home Depot, and Lowes.  But, cost and replaceability are the two most important factors in any design for our "Villa".  And Target items are too pricey.  So . . . I came up with my own version of "Snowman Solar Stakes".  They are pretty cute, and definitely, inexpensive enough, I made extras to replace the ones which will disappear during the holiday season.