Patio Lantern Fixtures

Thank you so much for all the kind comments and thoughts in regard to my father-in-law's sudden death last week.  I really appreciate it.

We're back home.

I left almost 3 weeks ago, and we're home now.

Last Saturday was my father-in-law's funeral.

He was such a good man, we'll definitely miss him.

One of the hard things is knowing our kids are too young to remember their Grandpa.  But hopefully we can talk about him enough they feel like they know him and he will be an important part of their lives.

But life goes on.  We felt a lot of closure once the funeral was complete, and as the grieving process continues, life has its demands we have to meet....like my husband returned to work a 24 hour shift Monday and I had this mountain of laundry to fold.

Our yard was also a wreck.  We do have flowers in that weed patch if you look close.

So I weeded and mowed the lawn just in time for it to start raining. 

This little girl was perfect and napped on the patio in the shade.

So as I'm trying to get back in the swing of things, here's a little project I threw up yesterday that I'm really liking.  

LANTERNS FOR THE PATIO

We're in the process of laying a rock patio in the corner of our yard.  I've been trying to think of ways to add lights at different heights.

Obviously you could always do tiki torches or something which would be taller, but a hands free solution came to me when I saw these Solar Coach Lights for sale at Family Dollar.  If you have a Family Dollar near you, these solar lights come in a package of 2 for $10.00 on sale for the next few days.  They're meant to hang on a shepherd's hook in the ground.  But I had these basket hangers I bought at Family Dollar for $1.00 each.  So now for $6.00 each we have these cool little lanterns along the fence around the patio.

Obviously they are just landscaping solar lights so not very bright, and these are plastic ($5.00) rather than the metal ($15-20 each) but at night they add a little light above ground, and during the day look quite charming I think. 

I actually have a lot of projects to share with you, some clothing, a quilt, and few other things.  With all that's been going on I haven't had time to photograph or blog them.  So things are in the works to share, I just thought I'd start with these lanterns as they're on sale and I wanted to show people before they were gone/ more expensive.