I built a small solar engine circuit from http://www.makezine.com. It basically accumulates energy from a solar panel (or another source) and once there's enough, it triggers a small motor. To trigger an LED, you have to add a small resistor in parallel with the LED.
Changing the size of the capacitor changes the frequency at which the motor is powered on.
More info here: http://www.beam-online.com/Robots/Circuits/1381.html