Solar Fairy Lights - How to Choose Good Quality Solar Lights This Christmas

Christmas is fast approaching and so is the festive season. LED Solar Fairy lights provide a perfect outdoor lighting solution to help create the perfect atmosphere for a party. No mains power is required so they can be hung anywhere outdoors.

Solar fairy lights are also perfect for other outdoor lighting requirements, in the garden, decorating restaurants and cafes, pergolas patios and verandahs, camping, weddings, birthdays, and any other special celebration.

Please find below a useful guide to selecting the best quality Solar Fairy Christmas lights:

Solar Fairy Lights Checklist

1. Check the grade of LED used to ensure your lights shine brightly at night - look for the description "ultra bright" LED's.

2. Does the unit have extra features like a timer switch or different lighting modes? These assist with flexible lighting solutions

3. Ensure your solar lights are powered with Ni-MH batteries which last up to 3 times longer than Ni-Cd (lead acid) batteries. They can also be disposed of more safely than Ni-Cd batteries. Ni-MH batteries have a "non-memory effect" which means they will continue to charge on cloudy days. The battery performance will not be diminished by partial charges as can occur with lead acid batteries.

4. Ensure the use of original solar cells & not fragmented pieces that come in cheaper models. This ensures consistency of solar cell operation & faster charging times enabling your lights to last longer.

5. Bigger is better for solar panels: look for 10+ solar strips to ensure efficient charging.

6. The solar panel should use EVA laminated encapsulation, which has strong UV-resistance and a lifetime of 10 years. Cheaper models often use an epoxy resin: average life span of 2 years.

Fairy Lights and Bells Christmas Umbrella

Are you an extravert? Is your Auntie bonkers? Is your Granny Christmas mad? We have the perfect Christmas gift idea, which will definitely get them noticed.

Presenting The Fairy Lights and Bells Umbrella so named because it is an umbrella with some unusual Santa's grotto features. Fairy lights, Christmas baubles and some tinkling bells to ensure the user of the brolly jingles all the way.

To make this Christmas brolly you will need...
An umbrella, felt fabric, Christmas baubles, small cable ties, some bells (the larger the bell the more 'Sleigh bell' they sound, whilst tiny bells sound like fairies and pixie dust). You will also need a packet of battery operated multi-colour lights.

Open the umbrella and sit it upside down on the table. You will notice that along each spoke of the metal part of the brolly, the umbrella fabric is stitched to the frame. At this point sew a couple of stitches on top of one another to finish off.

In a similar way, sew a Christmas bauble to the end of each spoke where the umbrella fabric is sewn to the tip of the spoke.

To attach the lights to the umbrella frame, you need to make a little 'pocket' to hold the light's battery compartment.

Cut out a piece of felt that is half a centimetre bigger than the battery compartment all the way around. Cut out a second piece, but this time as well as the half a centimetre all around, also make an increase in the length of the rectangle by 3cm, this will give the pocket a 'tab' at the top.

Put the two pieces of felt together as sewn along the two side edges and the bottom. You will be left with a pocket with a tab.

Fold the tab over one of the spokes of the open umbrella, be careful to avoid any joints because this will prevent you from closing the brolly later.

Sew the tab to the back of the pocket to hold the pocket in position. Do not sew the pocket closed. Insert the battery compartment into the pocket.

Use the cable ties to attach the fairy lights to the other spokes of the umbrella in a circular fashion, again avoiding any joints in the umbrella's framework. Pull the cable ties firmly and trim off any surplus.

Now switch on the lights. As an optional extra plastic mistletoe can be hung from the spokes at the centre part of the umbrella. Bonkers Christmas brolly or what?