SunDroppar : Your cheap and classy solar lamp

Droppar jar becomes a solar lamp for balcony

IKEA items used: Droppar Jar (the little model)

After several months looking for an affordable and good looking solar lamp for my balcony, I gave up and decided to build my own! And what better source of inspiration than my favorite furniture store?

The masterpiece of this hack is the little “Droppar” jar, the perfect candidate for the job !

I choose it for 2 reasons : the transparent lid won’t block the sunbeams and the frosted glass is perfect to hide the lamp internals.

The end of the hack is trivial : I purchased a cheap and nice looking garden solar light designed to be planted in the ground. I saw it to the right size, glued the little reflector and the shortened light in the jar and voilà !

I bought a cheap solar lamp for the ground to be used in the Droppar jar

Saw the lamp to size

Sawing the solar lamp to size

The solar lamp internals fixed to the Droppar lid

Droppar jar becomes a solar lamp for balcony

Final cost : 2.99€ for the jar, 0.99€ for the garden light for a total of 3.98€ ! A very good price for a classy weatherproof solar lamp for balcony !

More info and detailed steps can be found on my (french) blog.

~ Alexandre Dubois