Cigarette Box Paper Lantern

If you smoke cigarettes, this is a nifty little way to reuse your old boxes. (:

I smoke Camel Turkish Royals, and I think the boxes look pretty cool. In my last apartment, I decided to cover a whole wall in Turkish Royal Boxes. It was so perfect, because my boyfriend has this old sign that says "Camel Cigarettes Sold Here." See photo. Anyhow, taking that wall down when we moved out was a total pain, and now that we're in a new place, I wanted to do something different with all my saved boxes. We have had this paper lantern light socket in the closet for God knows how long, and I have a full box in the closet of spent cigarette and beer boxes. Thus, with an idea, the things in my closet, and a box of brads, this lantern was born.

Step 1 Materials

If you smoke cigarettes, save up your boxes and the lantern has paid for itself. (:

Materials:
24 Spent cigarette boxes. I used 18 boxes of Camel Turkish Royals and 6 boxes of Camel No. 9's.
96 Brads, isn't it a good thing these come in boxes of 100?
1 Lantern light socket designed for use with low heat light bulbs; ours is from Ikea and cost around 10 dollars. I just checked the site, these are 4 dollars now.
1 Low heat light bulb; I believe the socket came with one but they're around 10 dollars for a pack of 4.
2 Feet or so of wire for hanging, though I used black thread :P
Hook(s) for hanging, however you please

Tools:
Scissors
Something to stab holes in paper, an awl would be great, but I used a very small screwdriver
Packing Tape

Comments

[nacho cheeze]

i just thought of doing something crazy with my old cigarette boxes, any ideas besides this lantern?

[JZ Price]

you could change this to be entirely playing cards.

[nobody_95]

good job!!

[Doctor What]

You are very imaginative! I personally don't smoke, but I have parents that do.

[Aleksandr Skotbot]

Funny thing is, most of the smokers I know had parents who didn't, and vice versa.

[Doctor What]

(17)

[shooby]

A friend of mine just showed me a collection he has last night. It is a stack of >100 High school ID cards that he personally lifted from people at his high school. Each one is individual (although there are some repeats), with a name and photo, but also because of how it's been treated. Some have chew marks on them, some have Frankenstein like staple stitching holding them together, some have writing on the back. I've been commissioned to design something with them, and this might be it. Although I also thought that creating something in the shape of a cheesy high school trophy would also be pretty funny.

[Aleksandr Skotbot]

With over 100 you could make a larger sphere lantern using a similar pattern, just keep in mind that those ID cards will block a lot of light, so maybe [if you're definitely into a light fixture idea] you could get something to space the cards out, the first thing that comes to mind is a piece of metal in the shape of a plus sign placed between the corners of the cards, but that would have to be on something more square. Let me know what you do, I love to look at everyone's stuff!

[killerjackalope]

I love this, it would look amazing with marlboro reds (my brand personally) but over here we now have obnoxious anti smoking warning on them that would ruin the look of the lamp somewhat. Maybe a giant one with beer boxes could work for me instead, I'm friendly with bar staff in a lot of places as well so it wouldn't be unreasonable to acquire small posters either. Or I might go raid some of the free art postcard things around the coffee shops in town...

[Aleksandr Skotbot]

I was thinking about fashioning a paper star from beer boxes. (:

[killerjackalope]

Hmm I've been planning a few things lately, one of which involves drinking a crate of miller or something else with clear bottles... I like that star idea, it sounds interesting. I'm planning on a big lamp, maybe using green bottles actually, hmm grolsch have pretty bottles...

[Aleksandr Skotbot]

heineken also.

[killerjackalope]

Oh aye, I wonder what would be better, top facing out wards of bottom facing outwards...

[Aleksandr Skotbot]

top definitely.

[westfw]

And... All those RPG playing cards that you've outgrown (pokemon?) (of course, if you didn't smoke, the money you saved not buying all those cigarettes would buy you a commercially made lamp...)

[Aleksandr Skotbot]

Funny story, in my bag of chopped up boxes I had some Yu-Gi-Oh! cards.

[Kozz]

A very neat idea! It occurs to me that one could do the same thing with playing cards -- especially if you've got a deck (or two) that's missing a card, because it may be useless as a playing deck, but a great resource for crafty instructibles. The playing cards will probably be more opaque than the cardboard used here.

[Aleksandr Skotbot]

I thought about that too, as long as your deck had 48 cards you'd be good to go!