Hello and happy New Year my lovelies! As you may have noticed, I took a little blogging vacay over the festive season. We’ve had my mom visiting so it’s been a great few weeks of family time but the kids are back at school this week and things are slowly getting back to normal around here.

So, getting straight on to some exciting news… I made an awesome discovery yesterday. As a South African living abroad, I get really excited when I find South African products in Dubai stores. On this occasion, the excitement was epic because what I found is basically bottled sunshine! True story.

The Consol solar jar isn’t a particularly new concept – I was introduced to them by my brother on one of my trips back home and have been meaning to bring some back to Dubai with me ever since. But then, I always have grand ideas about all the things I’m going to bring back… somehow when it comes to packing, often travelling back to Dubai on my own with the kids, things like pretty glass jars are dropped rather swiftly from the priority list.

Consol is well-known South African brand that’s been manufacturing glass products for over 65 years. Your favourite bottle of South African wine is no doubt encased in Consol glass. The solar jar must be one of their most ingenious creations to date. Housed in a classic 1 litre Consol jar, this solar powered LED lamp offers six hours of light before needing to be recharged. Its recyclable, super safe (no paraffin or flames) and the company takes their corporate social responsibility pretty seriously and employs formerly unqualified men and woman from Alexandra and Soweto township areas, increasing the product’s feel good factor ten-fold!

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I can’t tell you how much I love the simplicity of this design. The words, ‘connect dots to turn on’ are my absolute favourite.

There are so many ways to use this pretty light. It’s perfect for outdoor entertaining, camping and of course power outages. I’ve seen them used at bush dinner settings where they hang from the branches of a tree to provide light above the table – its magical. They also look amazing along a garden path at night and I imagine they would be a wedding planner’s dream.

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I am so thrilled to have my hands on these lamps, especially while the weather in Dubai is perfect for being outdoors – and largely because I may have managed to convince my daughter that the jar is actually powered by fireflies which is such fun.

Get yours at Dubai Garden Centre. And hurry!