i went to the nearby dollar tree to look for the special jumbo clothespins my mother wanted (for cruise towel securing purposes) and went to two other dollar trees yesterday (allston, woburn) hoping to find but came back empty-handed. i had much better luck, there were 6 packages, i called my mother up to report the good news, she told me to get 2. as i was leaving to come home, she called asking me to get a few things for the cafe. as i didn't bring my shopping bags and was carrying a bunch of stuff i'd already bought from the dollar store, i decided to go home first, grab my stuff, and take the motorcycle to MB instead, afterwards riding to the cafe to drop off the supplies.

i got a solar ornamental light and some battery-powered LED string lights. my plan was to somehow marry the solar panel to the string lights, with the hope of somehow making my own solar-powered string light mason jar lanterns (AKA fairy lights). i put the string lights (one white, one orange) in small mason jelly jars as a proof of concept.

my father and i played with the waterproof RGB LED strip lights. even though we currently don't have the proper connectors and controllers, my father discovered you can still turn on the lights by applying voltage to the 4 contact points: red, green, blue, and power.

later i took apart the decorative solar light to get to the electronic components. i managed to strip everything out with the exception of the small solar panel, which seemed to be glued to the plastic dome. i also don't know if this can be matched with the string lights: the solar light only uses 1.2V 100mAh while the string lights are powered by 2 AA batteries which combine for 3V (don't know the amperage). at worst they won't work; at best they work but they're dimmer because of the lower voltage.