Red Paper Lantern for Lunar New Year
Get your feet wet in the Lunar New Year experience, by making your own paper lantern in bright red. Don’t worry, this is so simple that the youngest children can help if they can use scissors. For the easiest paper cutting, follow these directions, which are similar to directions for cutting a paper snowflake.
Equipment
- Scissors
- Red Construction Paper
- Pens or Pencils
- Tape or Staples
- Hole Punch
- Ribbon or Twine
Instructions
- Square up a red piece ofconstruction paper so that all the sides are of equal length. Cut the extra end off the rectangle to do this.
- Fold the paper in half, and then in half again. Pulling opposite corners together, fold the paper again to form a triangle.
- Trace, or simply cut out any pattern you like along the edges, being sure not to cut through all of the folded edges. You need to leave some of the fold or your lantern will fall into pieces.
- Carefully unfold your paper and flatten it out to admire your creative design. If you'd like to flatten the pieces further, iron them between sheets of cardstock with a medium hot iron (no steam setting).
- Gently curve around the vertical edges until they meet at the back, forming a long lantern shape.
- Secure the edges with tape or staples. Punch 2 holes 1” from the top on opposite sides of the lantern.
- Thread a loose ribbon through the holes and tie at the top to hang your lantern from a hook or light fixture in your home.
Notes
I suggest you use round-tip children’s scissors for the kids since this will require a fair bit of cutting.
Repeat this process until you have a festive number of red lanterns hanging all around. You can also attach several lanterns to one long rope to form a garland of lanterns.
Dress up the lanterns by adding gold paint, glitter, or ribbons or tassles.
- I like to keep mine plain so that I can simply compost them when I'm done and not worry about contaminants. That's the beauty of paper crafts when you're finished with them!
- Use sourdough starter or flour paste in place of glue and tape to further make these easily compostable.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!