Introduction: Paper Chinese Lantern

About: Maker guy with a lot of love for paper and cardboard. Recently also working with recycled plastics. other related interests are photography, youtube, recycling, etc :-)

Hi! This is a very quick and simple way to make a beautiful small lantern for decoration or Chinese new year. ( this lantern is easy to scale to a bigger size by the way ) Using LED waxine lights/ LED tealights it's also very nice ( and safe ) to make the lantern functional. What you got to do is collect a few things and dive right into this project. The PDF file template parts can be found in the last step. Original file size is A4.

Supplies

- Printer paper in red and gold
- scissors
- ruler
- craft knife
- glue
- LED tealights

Step 1: How It's Made

cut out the parts of the PDF file. Some should be best printed on red paper and 1 sheet also onto gold, so you will have the nice decorative rims on the lanterns. Fold the top and bottom strip on the first red part ( see second photo ). Glue the golden strips on the folded edges. When this is dry you can position the part on top of the smaller and longer red part on the top left. Use glue and let it dry very well. When dry, force the lower golden strip upwards so you can glue this one also onto the longer red strip. When this is dry, you can bend it into the lantern and glue well. Only thing you have to do now is to add the paper handle to finish the lantern and you are ready!

Step 2: Done! Only Add Light

For lighting it's very important you use a safe light source and i can recommend LED waxine lights. This lantern is easy to scale up if you like to make a bigger one. Enjoy your quick project! :-)

Paper Challenge

Participated in the
Paper Challenge