Glittery Diwali Lanterns/Festive Lantern Decorations

meetthemeese
Oct 25, 2022
4 min read

A not-so-quick-but-still-satisfying DIY Diwali decor idea! Or for any other festive celebrations, really.

Paper lantern with glitter — Even the blurriness of the picture doesn't detract from its awesomeness

The Materials

You'll need:

Black cardstock - it should be stiff enough to hold its shape but not so thick that cutting through it becomes difficult. Black is best, because it'll block out the light very well.
A pen knife or sharp-tipped paper cutting blade, and a cutting mat.
Clear cellotape
Glitter
Some cardboard (I used old Amazon cardboard packaging)
Glue, tape or any adhesive you're comfortable working with

The Steps

Step 1.

Take your sheet of cardstock and trim it to whatever size you want. I've used an A-4 sized sheet and trimmed off approx. 2 inches lengthwise.

Step 2.

Draw margins of approx. 1cm to 1.5cm along 3 edges - the two sides which will be glued together to form the cylindrical lantern, and the bottom edge. We need our designs to be within these margins.

It also helps to stay clear of the top edge. Leave enough space to be able to make a couple of holes in the top to put some thread through for hanging (I forgot to leave this space at the top, heh).

Step 3.

Draw out some design or abstract patterns. Two things to keep in mind-

The design should not have too many wide patches or areas, as we we will be cutting the design out. If we end up cutting out too much of the cardstock, the lantern will lose its strength and end up wonky-shaped.
Try sticking to simple designs, because cutting out takes a while, as I learnt while making my lantern. Or if you're pretty good with a pen knife and have a solid evening to yourself, go ahead and make your designs as intricate as you can handle!

NOTE: If you have an appropriately sized die-cutting machine, then this step will be the easiest for you! And if you don't, well, a die cutting machine is not necessary at all (but a good paper cutter is).

I've decided to go for firecrackers, since the lantern is for Diwali.

Firecrackers drawn in pencil on black card stock — Crackahs

Step 4.

This is the part that will probably take the longest - cut out your design with a pen knife or a sharp paper cutter.

Cut out fireworks — Regret at my chosen illustration had already set in at this point

In case you have pieces that need to be cut out that are placed very close to each other, like in the photo below, I recommend pressing/cutting through them all in one go before poking out the pieces. It'll be easier to handle the cutting this way.

Salad fingers, anyone? — Closely spaced alien fingers

Complete cut-out — Several painstaking hours later

Step 5.

Now comes the fun part. Once you're done cutting out your design, flip the cardstock over and start pasting clear cellotape on the cutout areas (this means that the sticky part of the cellotape will be visible from the front face of the lantern).

Completely taped over cut outs — This looks like a nice mess

Step 6.

Once it's all covered up, flip the sheet right side up again. Now, take your glitter and start adding it to the cut out areas. The glitter will stick to the cellotape. You might not want to pack the cutout design with a lot of glitter - that will likely affect the transparency of your lantern (but if that's what you want to try, go right ahead).

Glitter being spread over a cut out area — The sands of time do not wipe away all holes

What I did was put a really small pile on each area, and spread the glitter thinly into all the empty spaces, pressing gently so that the glitter sticks to the tape. That worked okay for the smaller/narrower areas. For anything slightly larger, I picked some glitter up with a finger and rubbed it over the sticky cellotape - this gives better control over how much glitter I put on. You can use a brush or a q-tip too.

Placing glitter on the tape with a specific finger — wheeeee!

Step 7.

Finally, snip out little triangles from the bottom margin to get little tabs all along the bottom edge. We will be folding these tabs inwards to stick to our base.

Tabs along the bottom edge — Still fewer tabs than how many I've got opened on my browser right now

Then roll your piece and stick the sides together to form a cylindrical lantern.

NOTE: At this point, before attaching the base, you could try testing out the design by placing it over a light (even a phone torch will work) in a dark room.

Step 8.

Place the bottom (or the top) of your lantern on the cardboard, and draw a circle around it.

Draw the base for the lantern by placing its bottom on top of the cardboard and drawing around it — Where does the pencil end, where does its darkness begin

Cut this out. It's okay if you cut it slightly larger at first because you can trim it to size later, but ensure not to cut it too small. Also, even if the outline is wonky (because the lantern is now wonky), try to cut it to as close a proper circle as you can. That'll help shape the lantern once we attach it as a base.

Step 9.

Once the base is cut to size, plonk it into the lantern from the top and push it towards the tabs.

Place cardboard inside the lantern and push to the bottom — The light at the end of the tunnel was a lie, after all.

Now start gluing the tabs to the base one by one.

Glue tabs on to the base — Bad attempts at smudging out the details on the label

You can also attach the base from the outside, instead of pushing it through the lantern. However, the latter helps stiffen up the lantern so that it holds shape better (you may have noticed this, especially if your base is cut to a near-perfect or slightly larger fit).

Optionally, you can also cover the sort-of-messy-looking tabs by gluing a second circle of cardboard to the bottom (from the outside), but I was too lazy for this.