Paper Lantern DIY

We attended a beautiful lantern walk hosted by our good friends last week and in preparation we made paper lanterns. We were so happy with how they turned out and got tons of compliments on our paper stars!

Here are the details and resources we used to make our star lanterns!

First the supplies, you'll need:
Thick paper like this watercolor paper (we were out of watercolor paper and actually used some old scrapbooking pages and they worked great)
Watercolor paints (these are my favorite)
Hot glue gun & glue sticks
Yarn/Ribbon

Before moving on to the tutorial you'll need to paint your paper - in our experience it's best to really saturate your paper with color. The more color, the more vibrant the lantern looks when lit up! We used a wet on wet method and painted abstract colors on our paper.

Now the tutorial - we followed this easy lantern tutorial from My Seasonal Treasury on instagram. I had to pause it a bunch of times at first but it really is such a simple DIY once you get the hang of the steps.

1- Cut your paper into a square
2- Fold the paper in half in all directions - horizontally, vertically, and diagonally in both directions
3- Unfold and cut a little less than half way down each fold on the flat sides (not at the corners)
4- Fold the cut edges in to the diagonal folds creating 4 points
5- Hot glue one flap over the other causing them to pop out and become 3D points
6- Do it all again and glue the two 4-pointed stars together leaving a little space to pop in your light
7- Add a ribbon or piece of yarn to act as your handle and enjoy!

Happy Lantern Making!