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The Junk Parlor

Lamp Globes Turned Christmas Ornaments

Repurposed vintage glass lamp globes into outside yard art. Christmas ornaments for my vintage truck that glow in the dark.

Decorating My Vintage Truck

I decorate my truck every season, and I try to do it differently from year to year. Click HERE to see another way I decorated for winter.

Another thing I keep in mind when decorating is the cost, I like to keep it inexpensive! Filling a truck bed with pumpkins and mums for fall, or full of blooming plants in the summer can end up being expensive. Sometimes I keep the cost down, by only decorating the view from the road. That means half the cost, because I decorated half of the truck!

Another way to lower the cost is to purchase things I can incorporate year after year. For example I have crates I use year after year for my winter decor. You can catch a glimpse of them HERE. The red burlap I used in THIS truck, I keep to reuse. I purchased THIS for fall. So, I buy small things that will look good no matter how I decorate my vintage truck!

Vintage Lamps

This time my idea came while I was out and about thrifting and sourcing items for my store. Often, I see vintage lamps with big glass bases and beautiful brass feet. I think they are funky, in a good way! They don’t fit the style in my house, but I know they are very popular! However they don’t seem to be popular with my customer base because I have a hard time selling them. Because they are hard to ship and it really takes the right person to buy them, I often pass them up! However, THIS time when I was out sourcing for my shop, I was on the hunt for vintage lamps with awesome metal BASES, that I could use as bases for a cloche. I have a few still available HERE.

As I was loading up my vintage lamps and thinking about dismantling them, I had an idea on how to repurpose the glass globes from the lamps! And it was the perfect time because I was just getting ready to transition my vintage truck from fall to winter!

A view of the lamp globes turned ornaments at night.

The Process

I bought a bunch of these lamps, most didn’t have a light shade with them, and one was broken. I bought it anyway, because it was HUGE and a beautiful shape!! I knew it would be perfect for my repurposing project and I could just place the broken section to the bottom and no one would see it!

First up, I had to dismantle them. I would say I have strong hands, but let’s face it, as you get older it gets more difficult to grip things and unscrew them by hand! Can YOU relate? So, having some pliers or vice grips close by in case you need them is a good idea! THIS style is my favorite because the little rubber piece is easier on your hands. And I like that they clamp down, so again, I don’t have to rely on the strength of my own grip.

After you loosen a couple nuts, basically everything starts falling a part. I like to keep all of the little bits in case I need something for a future project. You may also want THESE, just to speed up the process. To use the metal bases for a cloche base requires no extra steps. You dismantle and you are done…stick a cloche on it. And to repurpose the lamp globes, you are basically done as well!

You just need to stick a solar light in it! I mean who doesn’t like easy projects like this that make a BIG impact!

Watch Me Decorate The Truck


Tools & Materials


Decorating the Truck with my Glass Lamp Globes

Next, I went out and gathered tons of greenery from the ditches near my house. I am fortunate to have this stuff to clip and use in my decor because it’s FREE! If you don’t feel like stopping road side and cutting greenery from trees in the ditch, you could buy some from a garden center or use faux greenery. You can even get fresh clippings delivered to your door!

Start by arranging your greenery. I made sure to stick mine into the garden dirt that I already have in the back of my truck from my Summer decor. I also like to stick it into the dirt to make sure it stays in place on windy days. Make sure you angle your greenery in different directions so it creates “windows” for your ornaments to be seen. Make sure to have some greenery draping over the side of the truck bed. It looks better when the greenery is a little “messy” and outside of the box. We are not coloring 😉

Next, take your lamp bases and put them into the “windows” you created with your greenery. To secure them in place, you can put your solar stake into the ground and then place the lamp base over it. If you feel like you need to secure them further, you can also use wooden stakes. Mine nestled down inside my planter boxes, so I didn’t anticipating them moving, even on a windy day. You do want the globes high enough that you can see them.

*NOTE – I was right, we had 70 mile an hour winds and none of my ornaments blue out of the planter boxes!

If you want to make your ornaments look more realistic, you could use an aluminum pie pan to create a silver top that mimics the top of an ornament. You could also take your ribbon and tie it around the top. I like the ribbon because it adds pops of color that can be seen during the daytime.

The Finished Look

I love how it turned out! I think I am most surprised that the “ornaments” look good in the daytime. I actually think I love them more in the daytime with the sun shining through them. The brighter colored glass lamp globes especially! You can see in the video that they look good at night as well, however I did have quite the time with my solar lights. I live in southern Iowa and we get tons of sunlight, yet the solar lights don’t always have enough power to turn on at night, or if they do they don’t last all night.

I get up at 4:45 am and head to the gym every morning. Some mornings the truck is all lit up and other times it is completely black. I got super cheap solar lights like THIS, the first round. Then, after they struggled to turn on, I went back and got a different style, like THESE. I also made adjustments to the solar light placement and lamp globe placement. I tried to position everything so that it would get the most sunlight possible, yet, look good in the daytime too!

After falling in love with how the sun looked shining through the glass during the day I wanted to get even more lamp globes, but of course because I wanted to find some, I didn’t have any luck. I did however stumble upon some extra large red glass and blue glass vases. I grabbed those and stuck them in the truck as well. You could position those with the opening up or down. I did both. If you have the vase opening up, you can also remove the stake section of your solar lights and simply place the light inside the vase, where it can’t be seen, yet gets power to light up at night! So, colored vases are another option! Don’t forget that it is alright if your globes have imperfections! They will be disguised with greenery, and since this is outdoor decor we are focusing on a faraway view.

Watch to the end of this video to see how the globes look lit up at night…

No Truck of Your Own? No Problem!

If you don’t have a truck to decorate like I do, that is okay! I can see this being done in flower beds or oversized planters. You could scatter groupings of three ornaments around your yard in different areas. If you want to add to your ornaments you could paint them or use glitter to make them look even more festive. You don’t have to recreate my looks exactly, but I hope to inspire you to come up with different ways to repurpose things.

Click here to see how I have decorated my truck for winter in the past.

This post may contain affiliate links for the products I use and recommend. I am not paid to promote these products. If you purchase using my affiliate links, I could make a small commission at no charge to you.

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