I'd dress it up for Christmas/Winter, with evergreens and/or holly, jingle bells, bows... and replace the bulb with a candle!

I love the Christmas decor idea. You might need to make a place for heat to escape at the top, a candle is hotter than a bulb. I was thinking gnome house, or display box for soomething.
Remember to post a pic of whatever you do with it!
kathy

I think you should remove the light fixture and afix it to a plate or an ashtray etc. and turn it into a birdfeeder. I think it would be beautiful, maybe paint up the brass some bright colors?

I can envision a captured fairy inside.

You could take the topt (finial) off, take the wire and bulb out and use the glass part as a candle holder, planter.... some kind of vessel. You could glue on some stained glass... or glass etching...

And then you could use the finial as some garden art, or turn it upside down and use as a shelf..

Everytime I see something with clear glass like your light fixture, I think of kudzukween's captured folks whether they be fairies or witches. Below is a link to her blog with captured witches in lanterns. Just scroll down until you see them. Your lantern is big enough to capture a few fairies!

Here is a link that might be useful: Kudzukween's Captured Witches

I think I would combine a couple of the ideas seen here. Use stained glass or etch the glass to dress it up. Paint it black, like iron work, and place a solar light inside. Then place it somewhere in your garden that you would like to light up in the evenings. Maybe set on top of a tall post to make it a focal point in your garden. You could plant some kind of climbing plant around the base that could grow up it.

They have "candles" now that have an on/off switch & it wouldn't heat up but you would have to turn it off. The "tea lights" are supposed to last very long time on 1 battery. So when you let the cat or dog out(if you have 1) you could turn it off.LOL Jan

You could spray paint the metal part and decorate by season. They have battery operated light sets. Also battery operated tea lights. Put some garland and pine cones etc for Christmas, some colored grass ,eggs and bunnies for Easter. Good luck what ever you decide to do.

Kat

I say it's for the birds.

dcarch
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That's a keeper for sure. The only thing I can add is that if you had a bunch of them you could use them as luminaries with candles (or battery tealights) lining your path. I wouldn't even paint them altho would have to keep them from my DH - he wants to paint everything and make it look new! LOL

Capture yourself in the garden! Put your picture on each glass in different poses. Hang it where it can twirl so that you can see all sides of you! Put in in your special place so that everytime you look at yourself you smile.
Vickie

Dcarch, I love your birdfeeder idea!
You could also just make a suncatcher decoration by mosaicing the glass panels with stained glass and hang it from a tree or something, the sun would make it look stunning. Use clear silicon as the adhesive and either grout it with, I think black would be great or even "glass frit" in all the gaps )frit is ground up glass used for glass fusing). I did my front porch light using iridised glass and a small amount of frit around the little flower in the centre
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You can see the frit better in this heart photo, I used it for all the gaps and I used a different colour so it really stands out but you could use whatever colour you like and bright coloured glass would be great.
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Can't wait to see what you end up doing with it.
(((hugs)))
Tracey