I have installed quite a few garden lights over the years and have found that they either cost a small fortune or they quickly wear out in both functionality and esthetics.

Today solar lights are the big push. Although solar lights are great for marking a path in the darkness and can look pretty with the right application, they seem to be made much cheaper than the cheapest 12 volt lighting. I don’t really consider them garden “Lights” at all as they produce very little light. Also, in the northern climate where I live, they shut off early on the long dark winter days when you need them the most.

Wanting an affordable alternative to these problems, I came up with my own design using all easily acquired materials (which was a challenge in itself) and knowing that it can be difficult to create another one in the future after the project details have been long forgotten, I decided to put the extra effort into creating a step-by-step.

Being interested in DIY projects, I recently came across the Instructables website and wanted to share my project but I certainly don‘t want to rebuild the whole process from scratch so I‘m sharing it this way.

At a glance the project looks long and intimidating but it’s just because the process is in such great detail. These are quite easy to build, especially after the first one and they really light up an area or pathway. They could easily be hooked up daisy chain style to a battery with an adequate solar panel to create some very bright, high quality garden lights, especially with the low power consumption of the led bulbs. Here's the guide ~ "Build Your Own "Stone" Garden Lights"