Halloween is not all about dressing up in a Robin Hood child costume or other spooky costumes. The decorations are also very important for an autumn festival like Halloween. For example, you can create a perfect Halloween atmosphere if you use colorful lanterns at dusk. Here is how you can craft such a lantern yourself in just a few steps.
Difficulty: Fairly easy, but some patience is required
Material:
- Construction paper or photo paper, 300 g/m²
- Transparent paper
- Craft glue
- Scissors or a small blade paper cutter
- Office stapler
1: First you draw a template on a white sheet of A4 paper. The lantern needs to have almost the entire width of the A4 sheet.
Pumpkins and skulls, monster faces and ghosts, magic castles and castle ruins - let your imagination run wild. But the shapes should be simple, otherwise the cutting will be tedious. The shapes are stuck with transparent paper later on and they are supposed to shine.
You need a glue tab of about 3 × 5 cm.
2: When you are satisfied with the sketch, draw all the lines with a thick felt pen. Do this carefully and reasonably straight and make sure that the lines are visible later! Make the lines more visible with a pencil.
3: Now do the following: Turn your drawing with the painted surface on the table and draw a mirror image. Draw this mirror version in black ink, too. Now you copy the lanterns on the photo board.
If you have a scanner, you can use an image editing program and the process will be much easier and faster. Just scan, "Flip Horizontal" and print both sides of the box. Otherwise go to the nearest copy shop.
Make absolutely sure that your printer can handle this box strength. Otherwise, print the files in the copy shop or make a copy on plain paper and the stick it to the cardboard.
4: Whether printing or photocopying, the images must dry thoroughly before you edit them further, otherwise they will be all smeared! Cut the outer shape along the thick black line.
5: Scissors are quite tedious and impractical for cutting out the inner shapes. You might want to buy a paper cutter from the craft store or you can use a small knife!
6: Cut the inner shapes. The black lines should also be visible later. Why? Because the black line helps you to define the small bright windows of the board - that enhances the light effect and makes all the effort visible. Then, your guests will recognize your cool lanterns from the distance.
Important: Thick cardboard should be cut with a cutter!
7: Draw the contours of the cut-out window with a felt pen. This way, it will look clean and any mishaps that may occur when cutting such small shapes will be hidden.
8: Bend the stiff cardboard. This makes it easier to stick the transparent paper, which is much easier now than later.
9: Put the first page of the lanterns face down. Take transparent paper in the desired color and draw on the one you want to stick. The adhesive edge should be about 5 mm.
10: Spread some glue on the window and then cover the surface, so that no glue is smeared on the front of your work of art!
11: Press the pieces of transparent paper, for example, with the handle of the scissors. Do the same with all the colored papers!
12: Now you have finished the first part of your really cool lantern! You can also use it as a wonderful window dressing. You can easily mount it on the window from inside with adhesive tape.
13: If you want, you can spice up the pumpkin lantern with green accessories. If you have a drink around, splash some on green paper and cut it off. Glue it and that is it!
14: A small tuft of grass can make a nice frame for the pumpkin and also increases the footprint of the lantern. It is also important to have a straight bottom edge!
15: The pre-bent pages are now glued. You can staple the tabs if the carton is too tough.
Now you can put your beautiful and eerie lanterns by the window!
Warning: Do not let a flame burn unattended! Be careful when crafting and make sure that nothing can catch fire. You can find small light bulbs for these lanterns, which are great decorations for Halloween. So here is an extra successful idea for your party apart from the adult and child Halloween costumes for boys and girls.
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