Mini Home Art Project: Lantern DIY with recycled materials.

Every eight month of the lunar calendar marks the Lantern Festival, a period where family gathers to enjoy mooncake and tea under a full moon while the little ones get to parade around the neighborhood with their lanterns.










This year, I started a little creative family project with the my three cubbies. Instead of buying an off the shelf paper lanterns, we decided to make our own using recycled material, this took us about a week to complete two lanterns, but the actual process per lantern really just required about an hour.  Check out the picture on the left for a glimpse of the finished product.

Materials required:

- Newspapers for the frame
- A roll of Cellophane paper
- Glue
- Transparent sticking tape (Scotch tapes)
- Scissors
- Star dust (Optional)
- Colored paper (Optional)
- Thin metal coil

Instructions:

 

1. Roll the newspapers into long strips, for a regular rectangle, you would need two long strips for the top and bottom frame, and 4 short strips for the 4 pillar .

 

2. Band the long strips to form 4 right angle and tape the two ends
    together to form a square. Repeat for the second long strips for
    the bottom frame.

3. Tape the rest of the 4 short rolled strips to the top and bottom
    square frame to complete the structure.

4. Cut the Cellophane according to the size of the rolled strips structure .

 

5. Tape the cellophane paper to wrap around the sides, making sure to leave the top and bottom open

                         for lighting the candles.

6. For the candle holder, cut a strip of metal coil. Coil the center of the metal strips round a candle, making sure there is ample  remains  to tie the two ends of the metal coil to the lantern paper coil structure near the bottom.







7. Decorate the lantern with star dust or colored paper as preferred. The two lanterns displayed was complete with crepe flowers and star dust for the floral orange lantern, and a colored printout dragon head and tail for the blue dragon lantern.

 

The cubbies required some help cutting and taping the cellophane paper. However, they had fun with the rolling and structuring the lantern frame. Most of all, decorating the finished product.

 

Not to mention, the parade and displaying their proud merchandise.

 

See the glow on the face? :)

Note: If you love your children, give them a better living environment, love the earth, choose to recycle/upcycle.