DIY Lantern for Mid-Autumn Festival

Steps by Steps Guideline for Easy-to-make DIY Lantern

The Mid-Autumn Festival is an important event on Chinese and Vietnamese calendars, a time when the family gathers and celebrates this joyfulness of the festival. It is celebrated when there is a full moon and is characterized by rituals dating back 3,000 years. The festival falls on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the Chinese calendar, near the autumnal equinox. It is a time full of lanterns, tales, mooncake, dances of the Dragon or the Lion and dances in which young people participate in order to find a lifetime partner.

How to decorate your home with your DIY lantern

The Moon Festival is coming. So, you should decorate the house. It is very easy to make your own Chinese lantern. You will just need some papers, glue, and scissors to make nice decorations.

Let’s do a few crafts to decorate the house and enter the festive atmosphere of the season. Here we show you how to make simple paper lanterns, messages of good luck and fortune to receive the New Year.

These crafts are easy for adults and children, as well as to decorate your home, the courtyards, halls, gardens, or a little party with an oriental theme, as well as for a school project.

Most likely, you already have most of the materials we are going to use at home or you can find them very easily in craft stores.

Let’s Make Paper Lanterns for this Mid-Autumn Festival

Lanterns make very suitable decorations at this time of year. In China, you will see them appearing everywhere around the city, temples, shops, homes, and parks.

Follow these simple steps and you only need some papers and glue, and some other things that you most likely already have at home to make these bright and cheerful lanterns for celebrations.

Materials that you will need:

A sheet of red paper

Two or three sheets of gold paper

Pencil and ruler

Scissors

Scissors with design

Glue

Adhesive tape

Stapler

What to do:

STEP 1:

Use the pencil and ruler to draw perpendicular lines, about every 3 cm.

STEP 2:

Use the scissors and cut the drawn lines, leaving the top without cutting. This will form the lantern body bars and will form the balloon body bars.

STEP 3:

Use some adhesive tape to hold the bottom of the bars.

STEP 4:

Using scissors with design cut thin strips of gold paper.

Glue the strips to the bars of the balloon body as an ornament.

STEP 5:

Fold the top and bottom of the red paper.

You can use the ruler and the tip of the scissors to make a light fold so that it easily bends.

STEP 6:

Take a sheet of golden paper.

Apply glue to one side.

STEP 7:

Roll the golden paper into a tube; this will be the center of the lantern.

Secure the ends.

STEP 8:

Roll the red paper over the golden tube.

Match one side of the red paper with the edge of the golden tube.

Hold this side with a pair of staples to make sure it will not come off; the other end stays loose for now.

STEP 9:

Hold the lower end, leaving a couple of centimeters of the golden tube visible and forming the globe.

Attached with glue and a pair of staples.

STEP 10:

Cut two strips of gold paper.

Glue the strips on the top and bottom of the globe to cover the adhesive tape, and staples.

STEP 11:

If you are going to place the lantern on a table or other surface, cut out the golden part of the protruding tube.

If you are going to hang it, you can use the excess of the golden tube to form the fringe by cutting thin strips at the bottom.

STEP 12:

Make the lantern handle with a strip of gold paper.

Fix it from both sides at the top.