My son’s been away with his Daddy for a couple of nights so I took the opportunity to catch up on lots of sleep and satisfy my craft addiction. It’s also been a good distraction as I’m missing the little chap soooooooo much! I had seen these paper lanterns before and loved their simplicity and the way the light shines through the slits in the paper.
These lovely designs are by Jurianne Matter, available to buy from Berry Red and also available via Not On The Highstreet.
It’s a commonly used design so I set about figuring out how to make them. Conclusion: they’re very, very easy! Here’s a simple tutorial:
1. Cut a piece of A4 card in half
2. Fold in half lengthways
3. Turn upside down and fold about 2 cms in from each edge so you have something like this:
4. Next, measure and mark 2cm sections across the piece of card, as shown below. You should end up with a spare 1cm at the end. For extra accuracy in step 5, turn the card round and do the same on the bottom half.
5. Next, cut slits from the top fold to the bottom fold, aligning up your 2cm markers. Of course you could just use scissor for this, but I’m a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to this sort of thing and like complete accuracy!
6. Decorate as you like, bend the lantern into shape, and then use a piece of double-sided tape or glue to secure it. Unfortunately I didn’t get a pic of this last bit, but it’s pretty obvious…
Voila! There you have your snazzy new paper lantern! These lanterns should fit a slim highball glass which you can put a tea light in. They’d look lovely in the garden on a summer’s evening. You can really play around with the design too (as long as whatever you use is thin card). Here’s some I made earlier…
My mum runs the local Brownies and I offered to come in to make some lanterns with them. They totally loved them! I gave them some paper embellishments so they could make them their own. Some of them added messages along the top and bottom to give them as presents. One little girl wrote ‘”to my best friend in the world, please play with me more'” which made me want to cry! I ended up being Agony Aunt Shiv and mediating a bitter squabble between two 8 year olds.
Anyhoo, I decided to give them bits of thread to hang their lanterns with, instead of glasses and tea lights as I anticipated that brownies + encouraging the use of fire = kids being harmed and Shiv being sued.
sky blue pink 