Solar Powered Night Light

Small mason jar

Lawn solar light

Super glue

I glued the lid to the top portion of the light before I took the above photo. Sorry. I also got super glue everywhere. Messy is my middle name, as they say (or sudden, actually sudden is a more appropriate middle name for me). I did not glue any of my fingers together or to the light though, so all is well. I will definitely purchase the "gel" super glue next time. There is totally a reason they came out with that latter version.   

I made this night light because normally we leave the bathroom light on all night. My son likes light in the hallway as opposed to an actual night light in his room. Our hallway light it much too bright but the bathroom light shining into the hallway is just perfect. I can't put a plug in night light in the hallway because there is not an outlet there. I saw this craft on pinterest and knew instantly that I would try it out. I honestly did not think it would give off that much light but we used it last night and it was perfect. I love this little jar light and he did too!

I had the mason jar on hand already but the actual cost would be 58 cents for the jar. I spent $1.06 on super glue and didn't quite use a quarter of what I bought, that's makes about 26 cents for the super glue. The lawn solar light cost $1.79. This little craft cost a total of $2.63. I don't know the life expectancy of a solar powered lawn light but according to an ENERGY CALCULATOR that I found online, leaving the bathroom light on for about nine hours each night costs us $1.80 per month. If this is anywhere close to accurate I will have recouped the cost of the solar powered night light on our energy bill in less than two months.

If we were using an actual plug in wall night light, the energy calculator says it'd cost about the same as what I spent on this solar powered night light to power that for a year. However you look at it I'm not paying for energy to run this thing. It just needs to be set on a window sill during the day. Living off the grid, Yeah! (Haha) I'm curious to see how long the solar light will last but we'll no longer be turning the bathroom light on at night so as long as it lasts for a month and a half then I'll have officially saved money on this craft. This solar powered night light is awesome! 

We started the paper mache shelves yesterday as seen by the mess above. They will take a good deal of time and I'm pretty certain they are going to be quite lopsided but the small shelving unit is turning out very sturdy and it will serve it's purpose quite well. Additionally, paper mache is always fun and we'll end up with a virtually free shelving unit with a lot of character (I had to pay for the flour to make the paste but the cardboard box we're covering with paper mache came in the mail and I'm using a catalog that also came in the mail as the newspaper).

Average daily spending for 2016: $21.11