Introduction: Super Cheap Paper Towel Tube Lantern

this cool looking cardboard tube lantern can be made by anyone, all you need is a left over cardboard tube, pva glue, an exacto or a craft knife, tracing paper, a pencil, paint, a paint brush, scissors, duct tape, some string,  an led flashlight ( or any other kind of flash light as long as it fits in the tube, a pencil and some time.
Remember to put your flashlight in to the tube before doing any of the following steps so that you know where you can cut your design out!

Step 1: Paint It

 paint the cardboard tube any color you want, although i recommend blue or black, as it isnt very visible in the dark. let the paint dry and get your exacto knife ready.

Step 2: Cut Your Design Out

first of all draw your design onto the tube so that you know what your doing, then just cut along the lines, ( make your cuts about 1 mm wide so that the lines are visible.) remember, if you decide to go for a city landscape leave some cardboard on the corners of your buildings, otherwise your buildings will fall out!

Step 3: Time for the Tracing Paper

take some tracing paper, or translucent baking paper, roll it up into a tube, put some pva glue on ( make sure to not put any pva into your windows or cuts, yeas pva will become transparent but it will look weird compared to the rest of the lantern.) and then slide it into your tube, so that it i covers all the design. you may also want to put a circle of tracing paper on the botom of your tube to make the light coming out the bottom a bit softer and so that is glows just like your design.

Step 4: Put the Flash Light In

take your lantern and make two parallel holes, about 1 cm from the top of your tube, then take your string and cut 2 identically long bits off,  mine were about 15 cm each, then stick them onto the bottom of your flashlight with some duct tape so that they are exactly opposite each other. put your flash light into the tube and thread the strings you just stuck on through the holes you made in the lantern. once you have pulled them through all the way , make a knot at the to p so that you can hang your cool glowing lantern, 

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